Scythe
by Ennya
Summary: Hanna didn't need therapy, didn't want therapy, and was pretty sure there was more than just analysis going on behind Dr. Crane's hard blue stare... Pre BB.
1. Chapter 1

**Disclaimer: **I do not own Jonathan Crane, and I do not make any money writing this story.

**A/N: **Hi everyone! Thanks for checking out my first run at a Scarecrow story; that was a close poll, eh? I know there's a lot of these types of Crane stories floating around in the fandom right now...hope you find this one a little different. I just wanted to warn you ahead of time that this story is rated M for a reason. The narrative is going to be fairly foul-mouthed and contain some _very_ mature content. Proceed with caution. Also, I wanted to warn you that some scenes are dialogue heavy for a reason, and those scenes are a little...experimental. If it works, or if it's really confusing, let me know. On that note, since this story is Pre BB, I'm guessing this period of Jonathan Crane's life takes place in the early 90s, when certain activities depicted in this story were somewhat more tolerated than they are today. You'll know what I mean when you read it.

Other than that, I hope you guys enjoy it!

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><p><strong>Scythe<strong>

**Chapter One**

**/**

Suddenly I'm on a beach.

I know I'm on a beach because my feet are half-buried in sand. I hate sand, it's coarse and rough and dries my skin, and I'm so fucking furious that I'm grinding my teeth and I want to bite someone's head off.

_Jesus Christ, mom, why the fuck are we-_

...I don't know why my first impulse was to accuse my mother. My mother's dead, she's been dead for years, I know this. I look around me and I don't see her; I'm conscious that she's dead, yet I'm so sure she's here somewhere. Why am I calling for her?

I shake my head, and lift my feet one at a time to get them out of the sand, and when I open my eyes, I'm blinded by sunlight, except it isn't sunlight. It's warm but it isn't orange; it's some bright white light, something artificial and sterile, like a hospital light. And there's noise, the sound of kids screaming and laughing and waves lapping at sand.

My eyes adjust. I look down at my feet; my toes are swollen and blue, and I can't wiggle them. The light makes my skin look so white it's almost blinding to look at my bare legs. I raise my hands and look at them; they're swollen and the fingernails are blue. What the fuck, _what the fuck_?

My breath is heavy and I start to hyperventilate. I don't like the light...the light's artificial, it's not sunlight, what the hellkinda light is it? Where the _fuck _am I?

And then...and then suddenly - I'm on a dock.

I'm standing on the edge of the dock, looking down into the water. The water's black. I hold out my arms because I think I'm gonna fall in. I hyperventilate. I look up towards the beach. It seems to be a million miles away, but I can see the people on the sand. I can barely hear them. I open my mouth to scream to them, to scream for help, but my voice doesn't come out. I can't hear my own screams. Am I screaming?

I look down into the water, and then I'm falling.

I hit the water and it swallows me whole; the cold seeps through my clothes, freezing my skin, dragging me down like a million powerful arms pulling me away from the surface. I thrash my arms and legs, try to get loose, but it has a hold on me. The water has a hold on me, and no matter how much I thrash my arms and kick my legs I can't get free. I can see the surface overtop of me; I can see the artificial sun glaring down through the water, until everything is swallowed up.

I scream, and bubbles burst forth - the last air I have left. I try in vain to swim upwards, but my arms are heavy, and I can feel the slick slime of seaweed against my bare skin. Either I'm at the bottom or I'm nearing the bottom, and I scream. I scream but all that emerges is bubbles.

I gasp as water fills my nostrils, my ears, my mouth. It sinks in: if I don't break free, I will drown.

I try to pull my arms up, I scream, I thrash; my body fills with water, the last of the bubbles leave my lips. All I can feel is pain, and cold, and all I can see is darkness.

/

All I could see was darkness. I gulped breaths of air, frantically, and I sat up, planted my feet firmly on the cool hardwood floor and doubled over. I thought I was going to be sick.

I felt Dean's hand on my shoulder suddenly and it startled me. "What's wrong?" he whispered, his deep voice rasped by sleep.

I couldn't see a thing in the darkness. I rose my hand eagerly and brushed his hand with my fingers, relieved that he was there, and I gripped the sheets with my other hand to make sure they were there too, that I was awake and that it was all over. I sighed heavily, dropped my head and began to rub my face.

"Just a nightmare," I whispered, rubbing my eyes and propping my elbows on my knees. I wanted to cry. "I haven't had a nightmare in years."

Dean shifted in bed behind me; he sat himself up and cleared his throat a little before placing his hand comfortingly at the nape of my neck. "Did you eat something before bed? Pickles? Grapefruit?"

I shook my head. "Not since dinner..." I sighed heavily, and began to rub my face with my hand.

"You wanna talk about it?" Dean whispered at my ear; I could feel his breath fall over my shoulder. "Might make you feel better."

I couldn't help but smile, stealing a glance at my digital clock. It was 1:27 in the morning; he had to be up in a few hours but he offered to sit up and listen to me talk about some stupid dream. I shook my head. "Nah...it's stupid."

I stood up and padded across the room, feeling Dean's eyes on my back; it wasn't until I was hesitantly and carefully sipping faucet water from a glass in front of the bathroom mirror that I realized I was stark naked and I couldn't remember why I didn't have any pajamas on...until I remembered that yesterday was the day we'd heard Dean's thesis was considered for a governor general's award. I blinked, staring at my collarbones; was I naked in the dream?

I shook out my head and drank two cups of sink water to clear my head a little and then I splashed a little on my face to calm myself down.

It was so stupid...it was just a dream, yet it was so vivid. I remembered people telling me about how some of their nightmares just felt so real, and I so rarely got them that I more or less thought they ought to suck it up, be a man, be a woman, and all that jazz...but I realized what they were getting at. It wasn't fun. Not fun at all.

Running a hand through my hair, I went back into the bedroom. Dean was lying on his side in bed with his arm curled under the pillow, propping himself up, as though he was all prepped and ready for a long chat, but he was asleep with his mouth open, and it made me smile as I climbed into bed next to him, pulling the sheets up against my chest and cradling my head in my arm, staring at him.

I felt so stupid; I had never known the security of sleeping beside a man before I met Dean; it made for some of the best sleeps of my life. But at that moment, I couldn't go back to sleep, not even with him there to watch over me. I was afraid to.

/

Three cups of coffee wasn't enough to get me through the morning alert and ready to learn. Listening to my professors' lecture through the first two classes was like listening to the voice of the teacher in Charlie Brown for four hours straight. I felt like death when I trudged over to the psychology department and knocked on Dr. Crane's door.

Dr. Crane gave me that same half-pleasant, half-unimpressed little smile he always gave me when he opened the door to his office and invited me inside. "Good morning, Hanna."

I tried to muster a smile for him, but you could only try and smile so much when you're feeling half dead. "Morning, Dr. Crane."

He closed the door behind me and motioned to the musty patient armchair next to the window with his hand, as he always did. "Can I get you anything? Tea?"

I set down my book bag next to the chair, sat myself down and shook my head. "No thank you, Dr. Crane."

I took a moment, as I always did, to look around his office, his tiny little office. The walls were covered with bookshelves, filled with old _old _books, but other than that, it was a fairly minimalist space. No pictures of a wife and kids in a frame, no nicknacks or souvenirs from faraway places; his desk sat against the far wall littered with books and papers. He always offered me coffee or tea when I came to session, despite the fact I'd never seen a kettle...

I watched as Dr. Crane sat himself down with his trusty pen and pad in hand, and tried to flatten out the wrinkle in his brown trousers, which did not match his jacket. He looked at me through his thick glasses, his pink lips twitching as if he meant to smile. "So, how are you?"

I shrugged my shoulders, trying to fool him into thinking I wasn't ready to fall over and pass out on the floor. "I'm okay."

He watched me, his blue eyes as big and as unimpressed as ever. "Anything particular you'd like to discuss today?"

I shook my head. "No."

He rose his hand, half-heartedly, and pointed to my face. "You have very dark circles under your eyes."

Instinctively I rubbed at my eyes, as if he'd told me my mascara was running. "I didn't sleep well."

That piqued his curiosity, as his eyebrows rose a little. "Oh? The workload of the semester taking its toll on you?"

"No, it's not that."

He crossed one leg over the other and tapped his pen against his lips, his eyes narrowed to me just a little. "Bad dreams?"

I looked at him pointedly and wanted to smile. Mind-reader. "Yeah, actually. Had a nightmare."

"Hmm," he made that unimpressed noise in his throat. "Would you like to talk about it?"

I shook a little; the last thing I wanted to do was revisit the nightmare. I crossed my arms over my chest and sat back in the chair, looking up at Dr. Crane and shaking my head a little. "No, I'd really rather not."

He shrugged a little. "Sometimes talking about our nightmares helps to alleviate their vivacity."

I shook my head. "That's what Dean said, but I'd really rather not talk about it. It's pretty...I don't know, basic."

One smooth brown eyebrow rose. "Basic?"

I sighed somewhat more dramatically than I want to. "Well...yeah, in my dream, I'm...I'm standing on a beach, and then suddenly I'm drowning."

Dr. Crane frowned, as though he found this new information both disturbing and interesting at the same time. "Drowning?"

I nodded. "Yeah. I mean, it's all innocent at first, I'm standing on some dock...and the next thing I know, I'm in the water and I'm getting all wrapped up in seaweed, and I can't break free, and then I...drown."

Dr. Crane stared, frowning at me, narrowing his eyes a little.

_**I know I'd like to wrap the little bitch in seaweed.**__**Skin her, lay out her flanks on seaweed, roll her up...eat her out with chopsticks...**_**chopsticks**_**. Y'know how you eat a girl out with chopsticks, Johnny? Huh? Johnny?**_

_I'm in. Session._

_**Heh heh heh...sssllllllppppp...**_

Dr. Crane shuddered. Hard.

I paused and stared at him, leaning forward a little. "Are you okay?"

Dr. Crane shook his head, tightlipped, and adjusted his eyeglasses. "I'm fine," he replied, somewhat curtly, and cleared his throat, composing himself once again. "Where do you drown?"

I blinked at him for a moment, stupidly, and then shrugged a little. "What do you mean?"

Dr. Crane's eyes darted off to the side for a split second and returned to me; a telltale sign that he was getting annoyed. "Do you drown in a bathtub, in a swimming pool...?"

"Oh," I exclaimed, suddenly feeling very stupid, and I shook my head. "Um, a lake."

Dr. Crane wrote a very short note in his notebook and returned his eyes to me. "So, did you die from drowning in your dream?"

It took me a minute to grasp what he meant; the lack of sleep was really starting to catch up on me. "Uh, no, actually. I think I was about to...die, but then I woke up."

"Have you ever had..." he paused, as though considering his next words, something Dr. Crane rarely had to do. He always knew what to say, as if he premeditated all our discussions. "Have you ever...been close to drowning at some point in your life?"

I thought about it, but then shook my head immediately. "No, I hate swimming."

Dr. Crane considered me carefully and a little suspiciously. "You _hate _swimming? That's a strong word for an activity we all generally enjoy at some point in our lives. Did you have a bad experience?"

I frowned heavily. "No, I just..." I ran a hand through my hair, considering it for a minute. When _did_ I decide that I hated swimming? "Just for as long as I can remember, I really didn't enjoy it at all."

Dr. Crane narrowed his eyes to me for a moment, as if he suspected me of lying to him, and then he jotted another quick note in his notebook. "You know...when we dream that we are drowning, it is often a symbol of...drowning in our emotions in the waking life. Are you finding you are overwhelmed by emotion?"

I thought about it for a moment, and then the answer was right there, and I couldn't help but smile and shake my head a little. It was so obvious. I guess sometimes all it took was the right person to make the right suggestion.

"I haven't told my Dad that I'm seeing Dean."

He gave me that weird little sneer look of his again. He always made his feelings about Dean well-known without having to say a thing whenever I brought him up in our discussions. "Why have you not told him?"

I laughed a little. "I don't know; the thought of telling my father that I'm fucking my professor is enough to make me want to change my name and drive to Mexico."

Dr. Crane wasn't amused at all. He was looking really unimpressed. "But you told me yourself in one of our past sessions that your relationship with Dr. Roberts goes beyond...fucking, did you not?"

_**FUCKING? Profanity! Oh, the profanity, **__Professor __**Johnny Crane, a side of you I've never seen...but I think I like it!**_

_Qui__**et**__. _

"You are..." Dr. Crane continued, twisting his neck a little as if he were uncomfortable. "...living with him, aren't you?"

I swallowed and looked down at my hands in my lap. Somehow hearing someone else say it out loud made it sound worse then it was. "Yeah, I am."

Dr. Crane held out his hands as if to say, _well? _"Are you in love with him?"

I looked up and met Dr. Crane's big blue eyes, regarding me very seriously, as if this was an answer he'd been waiting to hear since our very first session. "I...don't really know."

That obviously wasn't the answer he wanted to hear. He made a weird little disappointed noise in his throat and made a note. "But you would agree that your relationship with Dr. Roberts is beyond physical at this point, isn't it?"

Hesitating, wondering just how much I wanted him to know about my love life, I swallowed and nodded. "Yeah...yeah, I guess it is."

I saw the look he gave me and what he was aching to point out, which was the obvious; would my father really object to me dating one of my professors? It wasn't such a huge deal, other girls my age slept with their professors fairly casually, it wasn't a big deal at all; but I knew my father. Even if I told him that my relationship with Dean was deeper than just having sex, he wouldn't buy it; he'd probably have a heart attack, and cut off my feet when I went to visit him in the hospital with a hacksaw he'd steal from the doctor.

I sighed heavily. "Dr. Crane, suppose you have a daughter my age -"

_**BAHAHAHAHA! That'd be the day! Have you ever lasted long enough to knock up some chick?**_

_Shut. Up._

_**Wha? Just curious...you never have, have you?**_

"-and one day she tells you she's sleeping with one of your colleagues, who's maybe...five, ten years younger than you. How would you feel?"

Dr. Crane stared at me, taking in a sharp breath through his nostrils, and his eyes went elsewhere, out the window, as though he was trying to think of a way to skirt around the question. "I don't suppose I'd be too pleased."

"Exactly," I said, sitting back in my seat. "My father's never been good with boyfriends my own _age_, forget telling him my latest boyfriend's also my Latin professor."

Dr. Crane steepled his fingertips, staring at me, regarding my point, and then he tipped his hands. "So is it safe to say you're feeling guilty?"

"Guilty?"

"You obviously feel that you _should _tell your father about your relationship with Dr. Roberts," Dr. Crane began, rather carefully. "But you feel you have a valid reason to keep this relationship from him, increasing the likelihood of him finding out in a rather...inappropriate manner."

I scowled at him. "Inappropriate how?"

_**Fucking in the office, that's always a good one. Schmuck walks it, finds his kid taking it up the ass by some four-eyed profes...let me show her!**_

_No._

_**C'mon, Johnny, lemme show her, y'know I'd loooove to show her.**_

_I said _no_._

Dr. Crane shifted in his seat. He was starting to look increasingly uncomfortable; the subject must have had more effect on him than I thought. Nevertheless, he seemed to snap out of it a little. "Any number of ways. Suppose Dr. Roberts leaves a love note on one of your exams. Suppose you're visiting your father and he calls the residence. Suppose your father has an acquaintance at the university who could find out."

I gaped at him. It was all so far-fetched. "Believe me, Dr. Crane, my father didn't know I left for the Netherlands for four weeks last year, I really don't think he'd be able to find out about me and Dr. Rob- Dean, _inappropriately_."

Dr. Crane tipped his chin. "It was merely a suggestion. What I'm getting at, Hanna, is that hiding your relationship with Dr. Roberts from your father obviously takes quite a toll on you. You're exhibiting feelings of guilt; guilt, because you haven't told your father about Dr. Roberts and you feel you should. Guilt, because in not telling your father, it looks as though you are ashamed to be with Dr. Roberts."

I opened my mouth to argue with him, but then shut it. It was way too early in the morning and I was going on way too little sleep to grasp his meaning. "What does this have to do with anything?"

"Well, I'm just pointing out that your feelings of guilt surrounding your relationship is causing you a fair amount of stress, which directly correlates to your dream of drowning. You're drowning in guilt, as it were."

I stared at him and he stared right back at me, waiting. "So you think I should tell my father, is that it?"

Dr. Crane held out his hands as though I had pulled a knife on him. "I'm not here to tell you what to do, Hanna; we're simply here to examine what's on your mind, that's all."

...I hated that bullshit. He was probably dying to tell me that I was a skank and I should stop fucking my professor and find someone my own age, or at least do the responsible thing and tell my father about what was going on in my life. But he just stared at me, as cool as a cucumber, with that same blank look as though we were talking about the changes in the weather.

"Why don't we go back to the dream," Dr. Crane said, looking down at his notebook, obviously picking up on my annoyance. "You mentioned how you don't enjoy swimming. Do you suppose it's because of that very reason?"

"What very reason?"

"Drowning," Dr. Crane said curtly, as if it were the most obvious thing ever. "Are you afraid of drowning?"

I opened my mouth to say something, but then the buzzer on Dr. Crane's timer went off. Thank god; I was not in the mood to delve into _that._

Dr. Crane looked towards the timer sitting on his desk, and then at me, and smiled haplessly. "Well...I suppose we'll discuss this a little further next session." And he stood up.

I stood up as well, straightening out my shirt and grabbing my book bag up off the floor. Dr. Crane made a finishing note in his notebook before placing it carefully on the desk and turning towards me, taking off his glasses. "By the way, I have something for you. Something to try."

I scowled as I slung my book bag over my shoulder. "Really?"

Dr. Crane went to his desk and pulled something out of the drawer of the desk. Turning back to me, I looked up at him, regarding the coldness in his eyes as he handed me a small, light bundle wrapped in paper. I figured it was loose tea leaves.

"Incense," Dr. Crane said matter-of-factly. "Burn it while you're in the bathtub before you go to bed."

I examined the bundle in my fingers, frowning, and looking up at him curiously. "What's it for?"

Dr. Crane smiled a little, the first genuine smile I'd seen from him in a long time. "Just a little something for those nightmares."

_**Heh heh hehe...I'll give her a little something for nightmares.**_

I wanted to tell Dr. Crane that I didn't get nightmares, that the drowning nightmare was the first one I'd had in years...but it had a pleasant smell, and I took plenty of baths. I pocketed the little bundle, giving Dr. Crane a little smile. "Thanks, I'll do that. I uh, I guess I'll see you next week."

Dr. Crane nodded. "Indeed, have a nice weekend."

I smiled back at him, half-heartedly, as I was walking out the door. "You too."

I pulled the door closed and let out a breath of relief. The half-hour always went by super fast, and I was damn thankful for that. Any longer in the office and I would have fallen asleep or snapped at him in annoyance. I checked my watch; screw my third class, I was going home.

_**Two-faced little cunt, that one, hey Johnny? Let's call up the sonuvabitch and tell him some prof's sticking it up his little girl!**_

_Don't be so vulgar...and you know that's out of the question._

_**Yeah, but think of how much **__fun __**it would be!**_

_She's got enough problems._

_/_

I woke up in my clothes, blistering hot and annoyed, and looked to the digital clock to find it was 4:32pm. It was a blur how I'd gotten to sleep in the first place; after leaving session with Dr. Crane, I came to Dean's apartment, fell into bed, and laid there for about an hour, scared to death to go to sleep. I'd lost the entire afternoon and I was mad at myself.

I could hear Dean in the kitchen down the hallway, and groggily I got up, left the bedroom, and walked into the kitchen. Dean was making chicken stir-fry, standing at the stove wearing his sweatpants and taking swigs from a beer. As I came in and stared sleepily at the wok, my stomach grumbled, and Dean looked at me over his shoulder and grinned.

"Hey, you're up," he said, abandoning the wok and coming towards me, pulling me into his big arms and bringing me close. He smelled so _fucking _good. "I came home and you were asleep, like, _dead _asleep. You feeling okay?"

I smiled a little and buried my face in his chest. "I'm fine."

He went back to the wok and I drank from his beer, watching him. Dean is a big man, and he's got big hands; watching him cook with his big hands is one of the sexiest things I've ever seen.

"Well my 304 group wrote their midterm today; guess y'know what I'll be doing the next couple nights," Dean stole the beer from me, took a swig, and handed it back. "What are you gonna do tonight?"

I knew I should have tried to call one of my classmates and try to get the notes missed from the afternoon classes, but at that moment I was feeling about as motivated as a slug. "I dunno, get caught up on my reading, I think."

Dean nodded, and then regarded me curiously, and then his eyes lit up like a pinball machine. "Hey, how was your session today?"

I blinked at him, and then remembered that yeah, I had been at session with Dr. Crane earlier that day. Funny how long naps could make you so disoriented. "It was fine..."

I then remembered the little bundle of incense Dr. Crane had given me, and smiled a little. I knew what I was doing after dinner.

**/**

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><p><strong>AN:** Hey guys! One final little note here: seeings how I'm not familiar writing Scarecrow/Jonathan Crane fics, I struggled a little with this first chapter. I've got the plot all figured out, but how are you guys liking the format of the chapter? Is it too obvious, too convoluted, too cliche? Let me know, I'd really, really appreciate it. Other than that, I hope you enjoyed it. :)


	2. Chapter 2

**A/N: **Very special thanks to **anon**, **EmmalineGrey**, **ScarySpice, Amri Ishvique, Cleonie 'Jayne Mansfield' Quin **and** AlaskanWolf**for your reviews. Enjoy the second chapter! :D

**Scythe**

**Chapter Two**

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><p>The summer before starting the third fall semester of my degree, my father got remarried to a kraken named Diana, and after getting fairly sloshed and giving a rather unspeakable toast in honour of my father and his new wife, the Kraken, in front of everyone at the wedding, including my elderly grandparents, it was suggested that perhaps I should talk to a psychologist. Said visits to a psychologist were covered by tuition fees, provided I go through the residential psychologist at Gotham U.<p>

Well, you know who that turned out to be.

I was thrilled, in the beginning, as I'm sure any straight girl who enjoyed blue-eyed beautiful men would have been. Despite the fact I was seeing Dean at the time, I became only too excited to go to my appointments, even though I was positive there wasn't anything wrong with me, and Dr. Crane, in turn, seemed pretty positive there wasn't anything wrong with me either. He was chilly, but I supposed that was just how he was before he got to know you; I figured he'd warm to me.

I tried not to take it personally when I finally saw that he would always speak to me in a carefully guarded manner, teetering on the brink of sneering at every given moment. I tried to convince myself it was just his nature; he probably took himself a little too seriously, was very concentrated on his work, wasn't one with much of a sense of humour.

But I couldn't help but take it personally.

"How was your session today?" Dean asked me the night after my second session, as we were laid back in his apartment, facing each other with our backs against the arms of his couch, feasting on cartons of Chinese food and flipping through magazines.

I sipped from my beer and flipped the page in my magazine. "Dr. Crane's always looking at me like I'm scheming something; like I'm trying to get in his pants."

Dean chewed away at Shanghai noodles and when I looked up at him, one of his bushy black eyebrows piqued in interest. "Are you?"

"What, trying to get in his pants?"

He shrugged. "Wouldn't be your first time, seducing a prof."

I rolled up my magazine and smacked him with it, and he laughed. I couldn't help but smile.

"I'm serious," I said after. "He stares at me like I'm about to...reveal some great plan to set him up for murder."

Dean smirked; there was the playful glimmer in his dark eyes that I absolutely loved. "He's obviously analyzing you, Han, that's what analysts do."

I scoffed at him and shook my head. "Don't call me that, I'm not a pilot living long long ago in a galaxy far far away."

He stared at me as though I told him he couldn't take beer out of the refrigerator. "It's your name."

"Yeah, but you pronounce it like I'm Harrison Ford. Last thing I need is for the nickname Hand Solo or Hanna Solo to start floating around the history department."

"What should I call you then?"

I chewed away at a water chestnut and shook my head, flipping another page of my magazine. "I don't know, something else."

Dean made an inquisitive sound in his throat as he chewed away at some noodles, and then, as though he'd had a revelation, he swallowed and pointed his chopsticks at me. "Smoochy pookie. Huh? How about that?"

I gaped at him, my eyes widening. "No, not that."

"C'mon, Han, it's a nickname."

"Well I'm gonna give _you _a nickname." I declared, threatening him with my chopsticks.

He wiggled his eyebrows at me, tantalizingly. "Oh yeah? You could call me Thor, since I'm pretty much built like a god."

I frowned at him, playfully. "I was thinking more along the lines of Mountain Man."

Dean looked legitimately shocked and bewildered. "Why would you call me that?"

"Because you smell and you're hairy and if I saw you while I was hiking alone in the woods, I'd probably run and scream and alert the park rangers."

I expected him to get up and tackle me to the ground (playfully or seriously, only time would tell), but instead he looked at me inquisitively. "Nausicaä. That's your nickname."

"Why is _that _my nickname?"

"Because when we first met, you were just some innocent little thing and I was this big bulky sex god who wooed you with kind comments and compliments." He chewed away at noodles, and then rose his eyebrows at me as if to say _Am I right?_

I frowned and shook my head at him. "You're living in a dream world."

He shrugged, nonchalantly. "So I've been told."

I gaped at him. "You think _I _was innocent when we met? How d'you think we even ended up together?"

"Because you're infallible to my charms, just as Nausicaä was infallible to Odysseus."

"Yeah, okay." I scoffed, holding up a hand to get him to stop. We both knew we'd never have ended up together if I hadn't met with him in his office, alone, to discuss the topic of my final paper at the end of the winter semester. "You keep telling yourself that; last time I read _The Odyssey, _Odysseus went home to his wife instead of staying to fuck the princess on the beach."

"Yeah, but don't ya think she _wanted_ him to?" he grinned, going back to his motorcycle magazine. "I could always tell you wanted to fuck me, during lectures."

I laughed. "You did not."

"Uh, I did," He countered. "It was pretty hard not to notice, all you did was stare at me."

"Yeah well I'm pretty sure _all _the kids in that class were staring at you, you were _lecturing_, after all."

"Sure but you were the only one giving me the _fuck me _eyes as opposed to the _shut the hell up _eyes, there's a difference and I can tell, believe me. You might as well had written _**LOVE YOU **_on your eyelids and blinked slowly. It was all I could do to keep from getting an erection in the middle of lecture."

I snorted. "Whatever, man."

"Hey, I've made it my business to know when a woman's giving me the _fuck me _eyes. You were giving it to me hard all semester."

That I couldn't deny, unfortunately. The first few weeks in lecture had been spent in vigorous note-taking until I found my dad's little recorder, in which case, fuck the notebook. I could record the lectures, listen to his voice, which worked out perfectly, since there was ogling to do and certain banks to fill.

"Okay, well...if guys are so smart and can pick up on this shit, how come Dr. Crane is always looking at me like I'm giving him the uh...the _fuck me _eyes?"

"_Are _you giving him the _fuck me _eyes?"

"_No_, Dean..."

"Then he's probably just analyzing you, which is what he's _supposed _to do," Dean chewed on chow mein, looking at the magazine in his lap, and then shrugged. "Y'know, I know folks in the psych department. The guy's always been a bit of a dark horse, doesn't seem to get along with anyone, really. I'm sure you're not the first."

I sighed heavily, setting the chopsticks and the carton of food on the coffee table and reaching for my beer. He was probably right.

"Have you told him about me yet?" Dean asked through a mouthful of food.

I sipped my beer to buy myself some time. I'd only had two sessions with Dr. Crane at that point; we hadn't quite touched on the matter of personal relationships. So I shook my head. "No...I imagine I'll be bringing it up soon though...think I should tell him that, when we met, I was playing on the beach with my friends and you emerged naked out of the bushes and said I was as beautiful as a goddess and then I was all like _you had me at beautiful as a goddess_?"

Dean laughed, that deep booming laugh of his that came from the bottom of his diaphragm; it suited him, he was a big man. Twice my age and twice my size, seemed about right.

"That'd probably sound better than telling him you were jogging through the park and some muscly mountain man emerged from the bushes and carried you off."

I snorted a little. "Good call."

/

"So, we've spent some time discussing your education and your professional aspirations," Dr. Crane said slowly at the beginning of our third session, just as we were sitting down. "And we've talked about your father and your stepmother. Let's move on to the more intimate relationships, shall we?" He looked up at me with his hard stare, unblinking and unfaltering. "Are you seeing anyone?"

"Uh..." It was the conversation I'd been dreading for over a week. "...Yes."

I must have said it much more meekly than I thought, because Dr. Crane turned his head just a little, and his eyes narrowed in the slightest, as if he believed he picked up on something very interesting. "We don't have to talk about it if you don't want to."

Although it was obvious that he wanted to talk about it.

I shook my head and fought off a laugh. I wondered, at that moment, how many patients he had with the exact same...relationship that I was about to describe. "No, it's not that, it's just..."

Dr. Crane watched and waited, and then after a moment his eyebrows rose slightly. "...Just what?"

I scratched my chin, looked down at the floor, anywhere but directly at him. "Well...the guy I'm seeing right now, he's...well, he goes to school here."

When I looked up to meet his gaze, Dr. Crane was frowning just in the slightest. He must have thought I was being ridiculous; as far as he knew, I was dating a GothamU student, just some guy my age. "You met here?"

I nodded. "Yeah."

Dr. Crane crossed his legs and let his hands settle in his lap. I could tell he was getting irritated as I skirted around telling him the truth. "Is he is the same department?"

I sucked in a deep breath, and before I had a moment to consider that maybe I _didn't _want to talk about Dean, I heard myself blurt it out. "He's a professor here."

Dr. Crane stared at me, his facial expression completely indifferent as though it was something he heard all the time, and for a moment I almost thought he _did _hear it all the time, but then there was a very peculiar gleam in his eyes, and a very interesting tone in his voice.

"...Is he."

I nodded, watching him. "Yeah."

Considering me carefully, Dr. Crane's eyes narrowed to me for a moment. "Are you going to tell me who it is?"

I snorted a little in my throat before I could help it. "Can I?"

Dr. Crane shrugged his shoulders a little. "I am obligated to keep everything said in this room strictly between us."

I watched him, feeling a touch confused. "You're not gonna tell the dean?"

Dr. Crane smiled, he actually smiled just a little, as though he found my caution in trusting him rather endearing. "I will not repeat anything outside this room."

Part of me told me not to say, not to disclose anything to him. It would only lead to problems, and probably more bullshit we'd have to discuss further on down the road. I bit down on my lower lip, studying his blue eyes. I had a weird feeling in my gut that if I didn't tell him now, I'd only make mention of it sometime later down the road, unconsciously, and then he'd put two and two together. It'd be less hassle just to tell him. "It's Dr. Roberts."

For a split second, I thought maybe Dr. Crane wouldn't know who Dean was. It was a big university, to be sure, and the profs from different departments didn't necessarily get together to talk about Seinfeld at the water cooler every morning.

But all hope that he didn't know who Dean was evaporated; as soon as I'd said his name, Dr. Crane's little smile was gone. _Gone, _as the realization set in, and his bright blue eyes narrowed and darkened and for a moment I thought he was going to downright sneer at me. He looked so unimpressed right at that moment and I felt so uncomfortable that I almost picked up my bag and left. The air between us was cold and very tense.

Finally, Dr. Crane cleared his throat a little._ "_Dr. _Dean_ Roberts?"

I nodded, studying him, cowering back into my chair and gauging whether or not to leave session early. "Yeah."

Dr. Crane sucked in a breath through his nostrils, his eyes never leaving mine, and then he exhaled sharply through his flared nostrils. He looked down at the notebook in his lap, but I saw him raise his eyebrows. "...I see."

I sighed heavily and cradled my head in my hand. As if our sessions weren't tenuous enough, this new tidbit of information was sure to make everything go as smooth as silk. "I know what you're thinking."

Dr. Crane looked up at me, and he shook his head. "I'm not judging you, Hanna."

"You're giving me a pretty heavy look, though."

He was, too. He looked as if someone had left a dirty diaper on his desk. Quickly, he wrote a note in his notebook, and then he looked up at me with a hapless smile. "It's not something I hear too often, I'll admit."

"Yeah, I can imagine," I sat back in the chair and crossed my arms over my chest. I felt oddly exposed, having unloaded my biggest secret unto my psychologist. "Took me awhile to come to terms with the fact I was attracted to a man twice my age."

His cool blue eyes stared at me over the rim of his glasses for a moment and then he rose his chin and clicked his pen, setting his elbow on the arm of his chair and rubbing his chin thoughtfully. "I...can't say it's all in all too surprising. Dr. Roberts is a favourite amongst students, to be sure. How exactly did this come about?"

I shrugged my shoulders. "Well, I took Latin 324 with him last fall, and then 405 in the winter...we made moon eyes at each other the whole time..."

I took a moment to consider what I'd just said, and then I couldn't help but laugh a little. I must have sounded like a little girl gushing on about a crush; had I actually said making _moon eyes _at each other? Dean would have argued and said I gave him _fuck me _eyes, obviously. I sat in the third row of the massive lecture hall (and for the record, I sat down in that seat from the very beginning, _before _I even laid eyes on Dean) and, without a word of a lie, he noticed my attentiveness right away and we exchanged glances many times throughout each lecture. Moon eyes, right?

Either way, Dr. Crane watched me quietly, his eyes settled on me, so I continued. "So then, towards the end of the semester, I was having some trouble with my final paper, I went to talk to him about it and, well...one thing just kinda led to another."

Dr. Crane tipped his chin, his eyes darkening as they narrowed to me. "Did you sleep with him before the semester was finished?"

A very odd hush settled in the office right at that moment, making the air between us cold and awkward. I blinked at him, not quite sure if he had said what I thought he'd said. It seemed so...uncharacteristic of him, to ask such a private question. I stared at his eyes, his usually hard, blue eyes, as they almost seemed to glitter as though he was secretly delighted about something.

It was then that he removed his glasses, very elegantly, and setting them down in his lap, he returned his eyes to me, and at the corners of his lips, a smile was about to erupt, a smile to match the look he was giving me. I could only stare back, unsure what to do, not exactly liking the look he was giving me.

"Did you have sex with him that _day_," Dr. Crane said in a slightly huskier tone than usual. His eyes were hard on me. "...in his office?"

I stared at him, taken aback. How the hell had he figured _that _out? I barely said anything about the encounter...but of course that must have been it: my silence, my not-debunking his theory. I was too unprepared to wage war of this caliber against a man who studied the way the mind worked for a living.

Nevertheless, it was completely unnerving to know that he now knew that, despite my skirting around the truth, there had been some sexual contact that day. I remembered, when the air between us was so thick with want that you could literally taste it, and we kissed so madly and he sat me on the edge of his desk and slipped his fingers down my jeans. It was an impulse that led to sex later on that evening, spur of the moment type thing, very hot, probably the most amazing thing that's ever happened to me in my 25 years...and it had suddenly lost its nostalgia because of its obviousness under the scrutiny of this man.

I hugged myself. I felt like I'd lost a shell...and a memory that was all in all way too special. "That's...really personal, Dr. Crane."

Dr. Crane stared at me, without his glasses, with that strange gleam in his eyes for quite awhile, it seemed, and I was powerless to do anything but stare back. After a moment, as though he'd confirmed a long-unconfirmed theory, an all-knowing, pleased little smile erupted on his pink lips, and he nodded just a little. With that, he unfolded his glasses and put them back on. "...Of course, I apologize."

I knew what he really wanted to say. _Whore._

/

I started the bathwater when I sat on the toilet lid and carefully unwrapped the little bundle Dr. Crane had given me, pulling on the string that held it together and letting the paper open slowly. A strange, mountainous smell wafted from the incense, and from what I could see, it seemed like a crumbled blue herb or flower or something. I poked at it with my fingertip, listening to the incense crackle under the pressure.

Suddenly, a knocking sounded on the door, making me jump.

"Hanna, phone." Dean called through the door. "It's Lydia."

I set the bundle of the edge of the tub and got up, leaving the bathroom. With the door to Dean's office partially open, I went instead into the kitchen and picked up the phone off the counter, leaning back against it as I put the receiver to my ear. "Hello?"

"You didn't show up to GRST today," came Lydia's indifferent voice. "What gives?"

"No sleep," I said, shrugging to myself.

Lydia scoffed just a little over the phone. "So sit at the back and take a catnap, like a normal student."

I smiled a little to myself. Count on Lydia to have the simplest answer for everything. I rubbed at my eye, absent-mindedly. "What's up?"

"Your Dad called today," Lydia said, and I felt my jaw drop open. "He was looking for you."

"What? When?"

"About 3:30. I told him you were at the library."

"Fuck," I sighed heavily into the mouthpiece, and leaned over to look into the hallway to make sure Dean was still in his office. "Y'know they're on their honeymoon, what could be so important he's gotta talk to me while he's on his honeymoon? Figured I was free of them until the end of the goddamn _honeymoon_, at least."

"Just give him a call, will you?" Lydia asked, sounding annoyed, and then she too sighed. "I can't believe you haven't told him you moved in with Dr. Roberts."

Lydia and I were roommates for two and half years before I moved in with Dean; she was the only person who knew I'd moved in with him, aside from Dr. Crane after our third session. Lydia had an amazing relationship with her parents, told them absolutely everything, called them regularly, and could never understand the fragile relationship I maintained with my father. The most offensive thing done to date, in her eyes, non-surprisingly, was failing to tell him about a potentially important relationship.

"How about precisely for _that _reason," I remarked.

"Y'know you're gonna have to tell him sometime. Sooner or later he's gonna figure out you don't live here anymore, and I'm not gonna try to convince him otherwise."

Lydia always had that way of making you feel guilty without even trying, or so it seemed. It made it a little difficult to live with her at times, despite the fact she was pretty much my best friend at school.

I nodded. She was right, as usual. "Yeah no, I know, you're right. I'll call him tomorrow. Thanks Lydia."

"No problem," she replied, blandly. "Oh, and read chapter four in the book for Friday's lecture."

"Will do," I told her. "Goodbye."

We hung up and I went back into the bathroom, sighing heavily. I was _not _looking forward to calling Dad the next day, that was assuming I was able to work up to courage to call him at all. Worst thing was he had actually given me the number to their hotel room in Hawaii precisely in case I needed to get ahold of him or give him a call back. He'd probably keep calling until I called him back, too, knowing Dad. Maybe if I got really drunk beforehand, I'd have the balls to actually tell him that I'd moved out of the apartment Lydia and I lived in and moved in with my Latin professor.

I moved to turn on the cold water tap to even out the temperature of the bathwater, and gasped as my elbow inadvertently brushed the packet of incense off the edge of the tub and directly into the bathwater.

"Shit," I spat, and reached to retrieve the bundle, but most of the leaves had spilled out and were floating on the surface for a moment before beginning to sink. I rose what was left of the bundle out of the water. It was soaked. Ruined. Great.

I rubbed my face, feeling exhausted and more perturbed than ever. Frustrated, I pulled the plug on the water, scooping up as many of the leaves as I could and wiping them off on squares of dry toilet paper, watching the water circle the drain and disappear.

Guess I was opting for a long, hot shower instead.

**/**


	3. Chapter 3

**A/N: **Very special thanks to **Cleonie 'Jayne Mansfield' Quin, Saxonbandwagon, Lady Liesel, KorroksApostle, Miss Magenta Lestrange, iwishtheskywasgreen, corbsxx, Ravenclaw992, and Snowfire. **Enjoy the update, guys! :D

* * *

><p><strong>Scythe<strong>

**Chapter Three**

**/**

I stood in the kitchen for a good couple of hours, biting at my nails, wiping down the counters, rearranging items in the fridge, anything, literally _anything _that distracted me from the telephone. I had the number, there was the phone; I just couldn't get up the nerve to pick up the damn thing and dial the damn number and talk to my father while he was on his honeymoon with the Kraken. The very thought of it made my stomach twist and turn.

I was sipping coffee in the kitchen when Dean came home from class, with his arms piled up with papers and books. He gave me a great big goofy smile when he saw me at the table.

"Hey there, hon," he slipped his book-bag off his shoulder onto one of the chairs and bent over to kiss me.

I was delighted. "Hon, not Han. I think I like that."

He set his papers and books down on the table and sighed heavily. He was sporting my favourite blue sweater of his and wearing his thick black-framed glasses that made him look book-wormy and ridiculously sexy. "Did you go to 561 today?"

"Yeah," I said, rubbing my eyes. I'd slept a lot better the night before, but for some reason I had to fight the urge to pass out just about all through 561. "Greenwell didn't like my paper proposal, he thought it sucked, he gave me a B- on it."

Dean smirked as he went to the fridge and pulled out a beer. "Lawrence Greenwell wouldn't know a good paper proposal if it came up and bit him on the ass, y'know he's only a senior instructor, right?"

I shook my head at him. Dean was one of the associate professors of the Latin department at GothamU and he liked everyone to know it. "Whatever, I still have to find a way around this paper if I have any chance in hell of passing this class and applying for the honours program."

"Hmm," Dean sipped his beer and sat down at the table. "Didn't think that'd be a problem, hell I could supervise your honours project if you really wanted me to."

I frowned at him, playfully. "Yeah, cause that's _such _a great idea, Dean."

"Worth a shot," he said, grinning like an idiot. He'd known he was kidding. "So, talked to your Dad today? Honeymoon's going well?"

I leaned back in my chair, biting my thumbnail and staring at his jean-clad crotch. "Erm...yes."

He gave me the fish eye. "You _did _call him back, didn't you?

I pressed my lips together, keeping my eyes trained on his so I wouldn't look more guilty than I already was.

Dean swallowed a sip of beer and gave me this look as if to say _c'mon_. "Hanna, really, what can be so bad about calling your father on the phone?"

"Well you don't know him like I know him," I said and sipped my lukewarm coffee.

"Maybe not, but he can't be as hard to talk to as you're making him out to be," Dean said pointedly, and I sighed heavily, looking out the window, not wanting to go into it any further. I had been hoping that I could wait the afternoon out long enough and use the time difference as an excuse to put the call off, but I knew that since Dean was home, he was going to make sure I made the call.

After another sip or two, Dean sighed heavily and stood up from his seat. "Well, I gotta get back to work if I'm gonna get those midterm papers done for next week."

He moved to walk past me to leave the kitchen, but not before leaning over as I tapped my lips with my finger and gave him the doe eyes. His lips met mine and I kissed him gently at first, reaching up to wind my fingers in his dark hair, and picked up the pace just a little by gently touching his lips with the tip of my tongue, before he pulled away and grinned down at me.

"Nice try," he said, swigging from his beer bottle as he left the kitchen. "Call your Dad, Hanna."

"Damn it," I spat, knowing that if I got him going, he would have carried me off to bed and I would have had a great excuse for not calling Dad. The professor was on to me.

I sighed and hung my head and rubbed my face before forcing myself up to my feet and trotting towards the telephone. I picked it up and dialed the number that was posted on the fridge, and rolled my eyes as I listened to it ring a few times.

Maybe if I was super lucky, they'd be out doing something rather than lounging around the hotel room, waiting for me to call. Maybe they'd be doing the normal thing that newlywed couples did on their honeymoon, like swimming in the pool or walking the boardwalk-

"Hello?"

_Fuck_.

"Hey, it's me," I said distantly, chewing on my thumbnail.

"Hey Jo, how's it going?" Dad sounded upbeat and happy, as he usually did.

"Good," I replied, nonchalantly. "Lydia said you called yesterday."

"I did, yeah..." Dad got that distant tone in his voice, as if he could detect something wasn't right and was trying to figure out what it was exactly. I was silent, waiting for him to continue, and when he did, his voice was filled with slight disappointment. "Honeymoon is going great, by the way, thanks for asking."

I closed my eyes and fought the utmost urge to let out the biggest aggravated sigh over the phone. "Well good, I figured you get married, the honeymoon should at least go well, right?"

I heard him chuckle on the other end of the phone, but it wasn't amused chuckling. "Jesus, Jo, maybe you could show a little support and be happy for me. Y'know, getting over your mother wasn't easy in the least bit."

"So you keep saying," I drawled sardonically. "How is the Kraken?"

"Johanna-"

"She's probably feeling pretty at home in Hawaii, huh? Being so close to the water and all-"

"Look," he snapped into the phone, cutting me off, getting angry. "We are really happy, it might seem strange to you, but we really are. Now I'm not asking you to call her Mom or anything, but the least you could do is call her by her name."

"Yeah, you're right, I do apologize," I said into the phone, trying to match his tone. "Has _Diana _pulled her tentacles off you yet? All 8 of them? Y'know, with the suckers?"

I could literally feel his furious scowl on the other end of the telephone, and he was heaving, but just the way Dad was, he was going to stay as calm as he could. "I'm going to hang up if you keep acting like a child," he warned.

"Well that's new, isn't it?" I asked, sticking a fist on my side. "Just turn your back instead of addressing the matter at hand. Way to switch tactics, Dad."

"That's it," he snapped. "Goodbye Johanna."

"Say _blolololol_," I wiggled my tongue against my lips, imitating fish-talk. "-to Diana for me."

He hung up, and I slammed the phone on the receiver and stared at it for a long time, furious, as if the phone itself was the one who'd gone off and gotten married. I went back to the kitchen table and sat myself down, angrily, sipping the cold coffee in my cup so I wouldn't be provoked to throw it against the wall.

A moment later Dean walked in, glasses gone, wearing his usual sweatpants, and he went rooting for something in the fridge when he peeked at me over the fridge door. "So what'd your Dad want?"

I stared at the fridge door, at the Latin magnets Dean had found I don't know where, and how I'd spent an afternoon once putting together the most romantic phrase I could with my extraordinary Latin skills. I don't know if he even noticed.

I shook my head. "I'm not sure."

/

"You look a little better today," Dr. Crane observed as soon as he let me in to his office and shut the door behind him.

I shrugged as I took off my backpack and took a seat in the usual patient chair. "Yeah, I guess so."

Dr. Crane took his notebook off the desk and came and sat down across from me. The cool light from an overcast morning came in through the window, making his eyes seem unnaturally blue. "Any more nightmares?"

I shook my head. "No, I really don't get nightmares, it was just that one night."

Something changed in his demeanor, a slight narrowing of his eyes, which I met with confusion. What, did he think I was lying to him? It was the truth, I hadn't had a single nightmare since that...since that one the week before. Nevertheless, Dr. Crane looked less than pleased about something, and I couldn't figure it out.

I had the utmost urge to shake my head at him. Jesus, we were all of, what, five fucking seconds into the session and already he was pissed at me.

After a moment, however, he seemed to lighten up a little, and his eyes brightened just in the slightest, and his pink lips gave me that same hapless little smile I was getting so used to seeing. He opened his notebook and wrote something down, not looking at me. "...I see."

I swallowed and sandwiched my hands in-between my thighs, looking out the window down onto the piece of campus that his view afforded him. The leaves on the poplar outside the window were already starting to turn colour, just a tad. GothamU had a gorgeous campus, the psychology building built smack dab in the middle. He was pretty lucky he got the office he did, small as it was.

"I was wondering something," I blurted out suddenly.

"What's that?" Dr. Crane asked, observing his notes in his notebook fleetingly.

I cleared my throat a little, and then shook my head. I couldn't believe I was about to ask this, but it was something that had been on my mind for a long time, ever since I started therapy, really. Maybe the answer would give me some insight as to why Dr. Crane always looked at me like he found me totally repulsive.

"What did they tell you about me, when we, uh..." I paused, trying to think of the correct wording, and Dr. Crane looked up at me with an expectant look on his face. "Before we started these sessions?"

It seemed I had surprised him. For a man who always seemed so calm and cool and professional, I caught a glimpse of his furrowed brow and the frown on his pink lips, and he sat up straight and regarded me with what had to be a touch of suspicion. "Why do you want to know that?"

That answer actually gave me some hope, a weird little flutter in my stomach, like maybe he would actually be able to tell me, instead of saying that the reason the school advised me to go into therapy was strictly for his eyes only, not to be discussed with the patient by any means necessary.

I opened my mouth to say something, when suddenly I heard the hiss of a kettle. Surprised, and equally confused by the sound, I looked towards his desk, where a jet black kettle was sitting on the corner hissing out a cloud of steam.

Oh. Guess he did gave a kettle in the office after all.

Dr. Crane looked over his shoulder at the kettle, and then looked at me with that weird little smile. "I'm sorry, I'd forgotten I put the water on."

I shrugged, showing him it wasn't a big deal, and watched him stand up, place his notebook on the little table between us, and walked around his desk to unplug the kettle. I watched him closely. There was a definite eloquence in this man's movements; everything he did seemed to be calculated so he made not a sound, not at all like Dean, who just lumbered around everywhere not caring whether he made any noise or not. It sometimes drove me nuts when he got up early in the morning to get ready to go to class when I was still in bed, though there was nothing quite so comforting as listening to him shave at the sink or sing Bon Jovi in the shower.

"Would you care for some tea?" Dr. Crane asked me, somewhat distantly, as he filled the tiniest little teapot I'd ever seen full of hot water. "A colleague of mine sent me these tea leaves from China."

"Uh..." I wasn't a big tea drinker, but I shrugged. What was the harm. "Yes please, that would be nice."

Dr. Crane allowed the tea to steep for just a moment before pouring it into two tiny little Chinese cups. He brought them over and handed me one.

"Thank you," I said, accepting the tea cup and giving it a smell. It smelled kinda gross, like mushrooms or something, but I blew on it to cool and then took a cautious sip. Blech, tasted like mushrooms too, but I was careful not to show it.

Dr. Crane sat down and placed his teacup on the coffee table before taking up his notebook, giving me a pointed look. "So, where were we?"

"Um..." I suddenly felt like an idiot, going back into it after that interruption. Maybe he put the kettle on on purpose so that we would get interrupted and he wouldn't have to listen to me talk as much. Seemed like something he'd do. "I was just wondering what they told you about me, like...what was in my folder or whatever."

Dr. Crane considered me seriously for a moment before crossing one leg over the other, his eyes flittering elsewhere as though he were trying to think of a delicate way to break it to me that everyone around me thought I was insane and ought to be committed. "I was informed about the...episode that happened at your father's wedding this past summer."

Fuck...I was never going to live it down. "_The_ episode?"

One smooth brown eyebrow rose as he regarded me with this look on his face as if to say, _have you forgotten? _"Where you became intoxicated and gave a rather...colourful speech."

I sucked in a deep breath and looked down at the teacup in my hand, taking another cautious little sip to buy myself some time and gather my thoughts. After a moment I set the teacup down and leaned forward. "...Is that all they told you?"

Dr. Crane hesitated. "No, but that was a key incident."

"Why?" I asked, suddenly, my curiosity getting the better of me. "What does it mean?"

It was something I'd wondered for quite awhile. I considered myself a woman of some maturity, after all; I took my schooling very seriously and so far I was making a relationship with a man nearly twice my age work fairly well. And sure I had my reasons for getting really sloshed at the wedding, but why on earth had I made such a fool of myself by making that disastrous speech? I wasn't a child, I didn't deal with all my other problems in such a manner, so why had it happened at all? I was hoping the reason was subconscious.

Dr. Crane looked as though he were slightly reluctant to go into it, as though delving into the past wasn't exactly something he was used to doing when it came to progress. "Well, it seems to me your anger was building up to such a point that you simply...had to expel it."

I sighed and shook my head. Yeah, I was angry all right, but usually I took my anger to much more productive means, like jogging or mashing the shit out of potatoes for dinner. "Yeah, and my grandmother was so offended that she still won't talk to me."

Dr. Crane quieted and considered me very seriously, his eyes growing slightly dark and fixed on me as though he were trying to read my mind. "Would you like to talk about it?"

I thought about it for a moment. Seemed bad enough that he knew about the incident at all, I didn't see the use in dwelling on it much more. "No."

He nodded, as though he were pleased to move away from the topic, and looked down at his open notebook. "So, last week we were talking about-"

"It's just that everyone was so happy, y'know?" I blurted out before I could help myself, and Dr. Crane looked at me, his eyes flashing with surprise. I sat back in my seat and crossed my arms. I hadn't wanted to go into the whole incident at the wedding, but for some reason it was plaguing my brain, especially after that phone call with Dad; I just wanted to get it out on the table, give him whatever justification I could behind what I'd did, even if I didn't really understand why I did it at all.

Dr. Crane went completely still and watched me very carefully, obviously waiting for me to continue. His expression was unreadable.

I sighed heavily and shook my head, looking down at my hands in my lap. "Everyone was just so damned delighted about the marriage, and they all had to stop to tell me just how delighted _I _must have been, like I couldn't work it out for myself or something. _Oh, isn't it lovely, Johanna, now you've got a mother, it's just so great, and so great for your Dad, it's about time he settled down. _Ugh..." I shuddered. "Made me sick."

He was silent, but I could tell he was taking everything in and considering it very seriously, because his followup questions both seemed irrelevant to the subject at hand and yet a little _too _relevant to the subject at hand.

"...How old were you when your mother passed away?"

I breathed in and let it out, thinking back. It seemed like such a long time ago, probably because it was. "I was seven."

Dr. Crane tilted his head to the side a little. "Any siblings?"

"No."

He made a quick note in his notebook before cradling his chin in his palm. "How did your father cope with the loss?"

I shrugged. "Fairly well, from what I remember. Tried to keep things as normal as possible, I guess."

It was the truth, too. I remembered how after the funeral, Dad took a whole bunch of time off to make sure that I had breakfast in the morning, and then he'd drive me to school and pick me up after ballet class and make me dinner. I remembered thinking that my mother's death had been contagious, somehow, and I thought that if Dad kept himself so busy, he wouldn't catch death the way Mom had, like it was a cold or something.

"Did he start seeing other women?" Dr. Crane asked, breaking my concentration.

I was quiet for a moment, and then shook my head. "No, I mean he got a lot of attention after Mom died...sometimes he'd go on dinner dates, but nothing really evolved from there."

Somehow I seemed to remember that more so than anything else. My aunt Marsha, my mother's sister, would come over and sit me in the kitchen chair and do something ridiculous to my hair and do my makeup, make me laugh every single time, while Dad loitered around the kitchen in one of his many good suits, looking groomed and prim, but he watched me as if he was pained about something.

_I should stay,_ Dad would say to Marsha. _I'll make her dinner, I'll put her to bed-_

_No way, you go and have a nice time, I've got pizza on the way. _Marsha would say.

_Yeah, but..._ Dad would get this weird look on his face, like he was really conflicted about something. _I feel bad, y'know, it's just so soon after Molly-_

_Frank, it's been a year, _Marsha would say pointedly. _Jojo will be fine, she's fine, you see? You go on and have a nice dinner, I'll have Jo in bed by the time you get back, go out and enjoy yourself._

Dad didn't look convinced in the least, but he'd kiss my forehead and eventually show himself out, and I'd forget he ever existed for the rest of the night, because my aunt Marsha was breathtakingly beautiful and a lot of fun and nights with her when my Dad was on a date were some of the best memories I had.

I looked up and saw Dr. Crane was busily writing something in his notebook before he looked back up at me. "How was your relationship with your father afterwards?"

I didn't even have to think about it. "It was...great, actually. We did a lot of stuff together. He traveled a lot, and he used to take me on his trips. When I was 13, he had to go to Spain for a week and took me with him."

I remembered that trip so vividly. Dad's father was from Madrid, so Dad spoke Spanish fluently, and when we were in Barcelona we ate in some of the coolest little restaurants where the waiters would fawn over me, tell me jokes and bring me orange juice in a wine glass, and then they'd talk to my Dad in a flurry of Spanish and Dad would make them laugh and then they'd bring me dessert. We visited the museums, which I didn't care for too much, but then we'd tour the city and see the architecture. Dad bought me so many presents and ice creams and I'd never been so happy.

"When did he start seeing your stepmother?"

_Ugh_.

"He didn't start _seeing _her," I corrected him, a little too brusquely. "She started working for him."

Dr. Crane made a little noise in his throat as if this amused him, and I looked up, glaring at him, but he simply shrugged his shoulders a little. "A man knows what he wants."

I wanted to downright sneer at him, but I refrained. It wasn't his fault, after all. "So does she, believe me. It's all she sees."

Dr. Crane opened his mouth as if to illustrate on that point, but then abruptly the buzzer went off on his desk. For a brief flutter of a moment, I felt a little disappointed. Seemed like I was only too eager to discuss the Kraken when the opportunity arose.

"Well," Dr. Crane closed his notebook and uncrossed his legs, standing up smoothly and giving me a weird little smile. "Shall we continue this discussion on Thursday?"

I nodded, getting up from my chair and reaching for my backpack. "Yeah."

Dr. Crane went towards the door and opened it for me, looking down at me with that cool expression on his face. And by the time I had my backpack flung over my shoulder and moved towards the door, I looked up at him with a little smile and meant to bid him good day -

There was water all over the hallway floor.

I frowned and stuck my head out, looking at it. It looked as though the entire hallway had been flooded. And the weirder thing was people were just walking on by as if it didn't phase them in the least, walking right through a flooded hallway floor, most mundane thing in the world, _okay, whatever_. Seriously?

I shook my head, not able to grasp it. I went to the doorway and looked out. No joke, the hallway was _flooded_, all the way down from one end to the other, and nobody seemed to notice!

I chortled a little to myself. I knew GothamU was old but it seemed as though the psychology building probably had a pretty bad roof leak somewhere. Either that or a pipe in one of the bathrooms had burst and nobody seemed to think to report it.

"Hanna?"

I jumped as Dr. Crane's voice rang alertly in my ear. I shook my head and turned to look up at him. He was standing right at my side, his blue eyes hard on me but touched with a level of confusion.

"Are you all right?" he asked with some degree of concern.

I looked out the door, down to the puddle of water...only there wasn't a puddle of water. The floor in the hallway was completely dry.

I stared, blinking. How...there'd been water on the floor, right there outside the door, and now there wasn't...

Closing my eyes and then opening them, to make sure I wasn't seeing things, I realized that no, there wasn't water on the floor. I...I must have just...imagined it.

But it was so...

"Hanna?" Dr. Crane asked, and there was a real sense of urgency in his voice this time, and I shook my head and turned towards him.

"Yeah...yeah, I'm okay, I'm fine," I assured him, a little too hurriedly. It didn't sound right in my own ears, I could only imagine how it must have sounded to him.

Truth be told, I wasn't fine. I wasn't fine at all. My stomach grumbled uncomfortably; I thought I was going to be sick.

Dr. Crane bowed his head, looking me straight in the eye. "You're sure?"

I looked back to where I'd seen the water on the floor. Again it wasn't there. I shook my head. I couldn't...I couldn't fathom what had happened just then. You didn't just imagine the hallway was flooded...right?

"Yeah, I just thought..." I stared at the floor, and realized it was ridiculous. I shook my head, and then I shrugged my shoulder. "It's nothing...I'll uh..." I couldn't articulate. I didn't even know what to say. "I'll see you Thursday."

Dr. Crane's nodded, and he kept his eyes trained on me. "Of course."

I left his office, staring at the floor, making sure there really wasn't water so I could be careful not to step on it...

But there really wasn't any. I gaped, shocked, and slowly walked down the hall, not sure what I had seen...if I had seen _anything_...but surely I had seen something, it wasn't just a dream...

I walked away, slowly, my stomach protesting violently and my head swimming. I could feel Dr. Crane's eyes on me the entire time.

/

I went directly to Dean's after the session, slamming the door and dropping my backpack and running for the toilet. I could hear Dean calling my name from the office before my head was in the toilet and I was unleashing breakfast into the bowl.

I sat back on my knees when it seemed all out, clutching the rim of the toilet bowl with one hand in case I was hit with another wave, and Dean came and stood in the doorway.

"Jesus," he breathed, and came in to press his palm against my forehead. "Are you all right? Something you ate, maybe? Did you and Lydia go to that weird sushi place again?"

I sat there, closed my eyes, biting back the urge to tell him to go away and let me hurl in peace. But the nausea had seemed to pass, and sighing heavily I curled my arm around his leg, pressing the side of my face against him.

"Han," he said in a quiet voice, stroking the top of my head. "Are you okay?"

I didn't really know.

**/**


	4. Chapter 4

**A/N: **Very special thanks to **Cleonie 'Jayne Mansfield' Quin, KorroksApostle, corbsxx, Ravenclaw992, pourquoibella, drivenunder, PsychoticallyInsaneForAReason, Miss Magenta Lestrange, PurgatoryNymphe, **and **Clavis Salmonis. **

Also a very huge **THANK YOU** to **happytide **who designed Scythe's beautiful new cover! :D

Just a reminder, guys: rated M for a reason.

**Scythe**

**Chapter Four**

**/**

I woke up to the sound of the water in the shower being turned on in the bathroom. Squeezing my eyes together, trying to suffocate the last little bit of sleep out of my eyes, I sighed heavily and rolled onto my back, rubbing my face while light from the crack in the bathroom door poured in on me. I could hear Dean open the shower door and let himself in. "Bad Medicine" would soon follow.

I sighed heavily and shook my head. I hadn't been sleeping well the past few nights, not at all. I'd forced myself into Dean's arms just about every night so I could fall asleep listening to his heartbeat. There was no such security as falling asleep in the arms of a big man, and somehow I figured that very security would pass through to my dreams. It hadn't. Once or twice during the night I'd found myself getting up and going into the kitchen to heat up some milk or pull out my history book or to simply sit quietly in the darkness, but even that was too close to sleeping for comfort.

Blinking, now fully awake, I looked over at the clock radio to see what ungodly hour it was. The radio beamed **6:04am **and I groaned. Dean liked to take _long _hot showers and indulge in long breakfasts over the newspaper before leaving for his 9:30 class. I never knew how he did it.

Sighing heavily, I threw the duvet off me and swung my legs over the side of the mattress, bending over to rub my face a little more before planting my feet into the hardwood and stretching my arms up over my head. I padded over to the bathroom and pushed open the door, met with a wave of hot steam right in the face and I could barely make out Dean's form through the fogged glass of the shower door.

I shimmied out of my nightgown, letting it pool around my ankles, and then slid my panties off, stepping out of the puddle of fabric and moving towards the shower, taking the handle in hand and opening the door.

Truth be told the man deserved the nickname Odysseus. He kept himself in good shape, maybe not totally built like a god like he joked about, but toned enough that I'd think someone chiseled him out of stone if I didn't know any better. His graying black hair was just a touch too long in the back and was plastered against the back of his neck. I shivered with anticipation, staring at his back as I quietly stepped in behind him, closed the door and gently laid my palms against his shoulder blades.

Dean paused, and then he turned around to face me, looking down at me with surprise in his dark eyes.

"Oh my god, you're awake!" he exclaimed, and then he grinned. That same grin that made me weak in the knees.

I rose my arms and wound them around his neck, bringing him in close, feeling the water on his body splash on mine and I pressed my forehead against his chin, closing my eyes and delighting as his big, strong hands swept up the length of my back.

"You okay?" he asked, his tone hinting just a touch a concern.

I couldn't help but smile and mused a little in my throat. "Uh huh..."

I leaned my head back a little and kissed him, softly at first, delighting in the taste of him mixed with the cool freshness of the remnants of toothpaste. I rubbed my fingers against the back of his neck and completely melted into his embrace as his arms wrapped around me and held me securely. I deepened the kiss a little, letting my tongue out to sweep over his lower lip and he opened his mouth and his tongue met mine.

After a moment, Dean broke the kiss and panted heavily against my mouth, and I felt that all too familiar tickle in my lower belly, making its creeping way down between my legs. I grinned, biting down on my lower lip as I felt his hands squeeze me.

"What's gotten into you?" he asked huskily against my mouth, but I didn't know if he was looking for an actual answer because I didn't give him one. I simply kissed him again, with a little more hunger, and in the next moment he swiveled me around and pressed me against the tile of the shower wall and closed the gap between our bodies, leaning down to kiss me with newfound passion and I met his kiss with full force. I curled my fingers into his wet hair and delighted in the feel of the hot water splashing down between us and made a noise of such anticipation in my throat when I felt his erection brush against my hip.

Dean held me securely as he began to pepper kisses all along my jawbone and I leaned my head back to give him better access to my neck. His teeth grazed against the chords of my throat and I shuddered, grasping onto him for I was worried I was going to melt into a puddle of goo under his kisses. I dug my fingernails into his skin as he kissed me and rose my leg to brush my knee against his erection.

That did it; holding me securely with one arm, he slid one hand underneath the knee of my leg and rose it up so I could curl it around his hip. Looking down at me heavily, he leaned in to kiss me, which I met with full enthusiasm, and he lifted me just a little before shoving his erection right into me.

I opened my lips and gasped against his mouth, squeezing around his erection and listening to the groan that escaped his lips. I'd never been so turned on in my life.

I'd only ever been with a few men in my life, and not one of them did to me what Dean did to me. The man set me on fire and I _burned_ for him.

He rocked against me, keeping me locked securely against his body with one arm as I kept my leg curled around his hip. Every movement shocked my body with electricity unlike anything I'd ever felt before, and I moaned low against his lips, stopping to kiss him as he thrust his hips into mine. I curled my fingers into his hair and pulled and he growled in his throat, picking up the pace, raising his other arm to snake around my neck and bring me closer to him. I gasped against him as he thrust in and up, moving me against the tiles but his arms were locked around me like they couldn't be torn away. I bowed my head back, allowing him to assault my throat once more as he thrust into me again and again, his hips seeming to gain more power with every thrust.

I could feel that all too familiar change in him when his movements suddenly picked up the pace, and he thrust into me faster, and his lips ravaged mine, and his hands held me so tightly it was beginning to hurt. He was close to climax, and I squirmed against him, squeezing around his erection as best I could to give him that little extra tightness. I squeezed my arms around him as he pounded into me harder and harder, and I moaned low against his ear as he buried his face in the crook of my neck.

Suddenly he thrust into my hips extra hard, his erection touching me deeper than I'd ever been touched, and he pushed me hard against the tile wall, his fingers squeezing me hard, and I winced and whimpered against his ear and felt his teeth sink into my shoulder as his climax shook his entire body. I clung to him hard, feeling the pain but the pleasure overpowered it, and when he stilled like a statue against me, I closed my eyes and listened to his heavy panting against my shoulder and the rush of the water falling down around us.

I hadn't reached my orgasm, but I didn't need it. Simply feeling his rock hard body pressed into mine and his penis inside me was ecstasy enough.

After a moment, when his panting had ceased into quiet breathing and his lips pressed against my shoulder (presumably to relieve the bite), I massaged my fingertips in his hair and traced lazy patterns down over his shoulder blades and down his back. It hadn't occurred to me how much water we were wasting, but at that point I don't think we even gave a damn. I pressed my chin down into his shoulder before nestling my face into the crook of his neck.

"Let's go back to bed," I whispered after awhile, but I was positive he hadn't heard me over the rush of the water. His hands softened against me, his arms went a little slack, and I slowly uncurled my leg from around his hip and simply stood against the wall with his body pressed against me, loving it all the same.

And then I heard him sigh against me. "Yeah, okay."

I grinned as he hoisted me up in his arms and carried me out of the bathroom, not even bothering to turn off the shower.

/

I was in a daze all day. We stayed in bed until quarter after eight, and when Dean got up to get dressed and get his books and everything, I simply lay in bed, naked and grinning like an idiot, and clung to him when he came in to give me a goodbye kiss. I was more than prepared to suggest to him over dinner later that the best cure for both his morning wood and my newfound insomnia was sex in the morning. I figured he'd be all for it.

I was floating around on cloud nine when I got to class at 10:45. Lydia was sitting at her desk, rereading the article for the lecture, and gave me a fishy look when I came waltzing in with what must have been a pretty stupid look on my face.

"What's with the grin?" Lydia asked when I sat down next to her.

I shrugged a little, not able to help smiling like a fool. "Nothing, it's just a really beautiful day."

She glared at me and leaned closer, and suddenly I felt her finger brush my shirt back. "Jesus, Hanna, what'd you do to your shoulder?"

I smacked her hand away and pulled my shirt back up securely to hide the bite. I shrugged. "It's nothing, really...Dean was just a little...aggressive this morning."

I sniggered, completely unable to help it, and Lydia had this look on her face as though I'd told her the grossest, nastiest joke ever.

"Oh my _gawd_," she squawked, making me laugh, and she pulled back my shirt to get another look at his handiwork. "Dr. Roberts _bit _you?"

"_Shaddap_!" I hissed at her and smacked her hand away, just as other students were starting to arrive for class. I bowed my head to hide the blush in the apples of my cheeks as well as the grin I simply couldn't get rid of, and I imagine I sat like that throughout the duration of the entire lecture, the whole hour and a half.

"Ugh," Lydia shuddered quietly as we were leaving the classroom and making our way down the hallway. "I can't believe he bit you."

"Yeah, stings like hell, too," I said, rubbing my shoulder and sniggering.

"Y'know I've got Latin 340 with him in the winter," she looked at me pointedly with this obscene look on her face. "How am I gonna listen to a thing he says when all I can think about is that he bites you like some wild animal during sex?"

I rose my eyebrows at her as I adjusted my backpack strap over my shoulder. "I'm gonna tell him you said that."

She gave me this shocked look, with her eyes wide open, and I couldn't help but burst out laughing. "You are _not _gonna tell him that-"

"Fucking rights I am," I teased her, grinning. "Don't worry, he'll think it's hilarious."

"I don't _want _him to think it's hilarious, Hanna," she said, regarding me very seriously, while I just giggled. "This man is going to be teaching my 340 class, he's going to be marking my papers!"

"Oh so what," I shrugged, and pulled the strap of my book-bag up over my sore shoulder.

It was then that I caught sight of Dr. Crane, with his dark brown suit, the bright blue eyes, and the unimpressed curl on his nose, walking down the hallway right towards us, and I panicked.

"Shit..." I squeezed Lydia's elbow, pulling on her sweater, motioning to take the long way through the engineering building. "C'mon, let's go out this way."

Lydia shrugged off my hand. "What for, the Blendz is in Comeau Hall!"

It was too late; I could feel the ice on me and when I looked up, I met with Dr. Crane's blue stare through the rush of other kids during class change. I fought to keep a pleasant, polite smile on the outside as Dr. Crane walked right towards us, while on the inside I fought the urge to jump out the nearest window.

Dr. Crane wore that tight, curt little smile of his, and for a brief, flittering moment of hope I thought he was just going to smile, nod, and walk right past us, informal but polite as usual, but it didn't happen. Lydia and I slowed to a halt as Dr. Crane came right up to us.

"Hanna," he said in greeting, nodding his head just a little.

I struggled to keep the smile on my face. "Afternoon, Dr. Crane. Uh," I turned to Lydia, who was staring at Dr. Crane with her eyes wide. "This is my friend, Lydia Harris."

Dr. Crane looked to Lydia and gave her the warmest smile I have ever seen on the man's face. Shifting his books around from one arm to the other, he extended his hand to her. "Pleased to meet you."

Lydia smiled shyly and shook his hand, sinking back into her shoulders. "Nice to meet you too."

Dr. Crane smiled at her and then he turned and looked at me, his smile faltering just a little. I fought the urge to curl my lip. "I'm glad I was able to catch you, Hanna. I've had something come up and I'd like to move our appointment tomorrow back an hour, if that works for you?"

I hated how polite he was being, albeit he was always polite, but this time it wasn't with his usual smarminess, he was being just as lovely as could be, probably for Lydia's benefit, who at my side was _really_ giving him the _fuck me _eyes.

I nodded, trying to give him a small smile but it was rather hard right at that moment. "That works, I guess I'll see you then."

"Until tomorrow then," Dr. Crane said, nodding, and then he turned to Lydia, gave her another grin, and tipped his chin to her. "Again, it was very nice to meet you."

With that, Dr. Crane walked off, gliding along as he usually did, and Lydia stood there with her shoulders hunched for a moment or two before looking over her shoulder and then looking at me, her brown eyes big and wide and staring at me like she'd discovered Heaven.

I shook my head. "Don't even start."

"_That's _your therapist?" she asked, going, as we started down the hall once again.

"Lydia-"

"He's _gorgeous_, he's like the most beautiful man I've ever seen, how could you not tell me about this?"

I rolled my eyes. "How about because he hates my guts?"

"He doesn't hate your guts-"

"He does," I said, thumbing behind me. "Did you not just hear the tone in his voice?"

"Hanna," Lydia said pointedly. "Would he really have stopped to talk to you in the hallway during class change if he hated your guts?"

I thought about that. She had a point, damn the philosophy major. He could have just cooly walked on by, completely ignored me, but he didn't; maybe Dean was right, perhaps his harsh, hateful glares really _were_ just analysis.

"Wow," she gushed. "I have a right mind to switch my major into psychology. What contact number did you give him?"

I looked at her sideways. "Why?"

"Well, y'know, maybe you gave him our old number, and say he calls, y'know, to ask if you can push your appointment back an hour, right? _Oh, Hanna's not here, Dr. Crane, maybe __**I **__can help you?_"

I laughed, shaking my head. "Yeah, okay Lydia. Believe me, I thought he was going to combust when I told him I was dating Dean, I don't think he's the type to start dating a student himself."

It was hard to picture him with a woman, really. Or a man, for that matter. What person alive could put up with his sneering and his pompousness and his constant self-satisfaction?

"Well you didn't give him Dr. Roberts' number, did you?" Lydia asked. "How awkward would that be? _Dr. Crane for Hanna, please_. _**Hi Dr. Crane!**_"

I burst out laughing, loving how her voice dropped to imitate Dean's booming yet goofy, cheerful voice, while other kids looked at us suspiciously as we passed them.

We got to the coffee shop, grabbing cheap coffee and muffins before taking a seat by the window, looking out onto the lawn towards the engineering building.

"What does Dr. Crane think about all that?" she asked, and then all of a sudden she looked up at me, aghast, crumbs of lemon poppyseed muffin hanging out of her mouth. "Wow, that's none of my business, I'm sorry."

I shrugged, picking apart my muffin top. "It's alright. He's not hugely keen on it but, y'know, he's not telling me to end it or anything."

"Could he legitimately tell you to do that?" Lydia asked, tearing open a couple of packets of sugar and pouring it into her coffee.

I thought about that. It occurred to me that if he was really disgusted with the whole thing and had the authority to say something, he probably would have. "I don't know...maybe if he thought it was really mentally unhealthy, he might say something."

"Hmm..." Lydia mused. "What makes you so sure he won't tell the dean about you two?"

I shook my head at her, sipping my coffee. "Doctor patient confidentiality. Guess if he really wanted to, he could tell, but then I'd be able to...I dunno, sue him or something."

"Wouldn't wanna do that," Lydia said with a goofy little lilt, smiling to herself as she stirred her coffee. "Beautiful man like that, I'd wanna make sure I was in therapy for a _long _time."

I shook my head at her, and looked out the window at students who were sitting on the grass, enjoying the last few weeks of hot September weather before it got cool. I wondered then just how long I was going to be in therapy for; Dr. Crane and I hadn't really discussed how long it would take to get to the root of my..._problems_, if that's how you described it. I guessed it was up to him and his whole psychiatric assessment or whatever; he'd decide how much longer we'd go on for.

It was a bleak, bleak thought.

/

Later on when I got home, it was past six, and something in the apartment smelled incredible. I dropped my backpack onto one of the chairs in the living room and wandered into the kitchen. I peaked in the oven. Lasagna, with a top of gorgeous bubbling cheese. The very sight of it made my mouth water.

"Heeeyyy..." Dean called from the office just as I grabbed a beer out of the fridge. "Don't touch that lasagna, it's gotta bake for another hour."

I popped the cap off my beer and wandered into the office. Dean was hunched over a stack of GothamU exam booklets, pen in hand, his glasses slipping off his nose.

"You made lasagna," I remarked, happily, loitering in the doorway.

"Yeah," he said, not looking up. "Food of the _gods_."

I stared at him, sipping my beer, thinking about what it would be like if someone told me I couldn't be with this man, if I was told our relationship was unhealthy, the age gap between us unnatural. Lydia herself looked as if she would throw up when I told her I'd slept with Dean in the apartment we shared, and just as weirded out when I told her I was moving in with him a few months later.

After a moment of loitering the doorway staring at Dean, he sighed, dropped his pen, and leaned back in his chair to rub his face. "I am _so _ready to eat and go to bed."

I smiled at him, crossed the floor, setting the beer bottle on his desk and leaned against the desk, smiling at him. Dean grinned up at me. "What're you looking at, missy?"

I shook my head, slipping off my shoe and pressing the ball of my foot against his knee. "What do they say to you about relations with your students?"

"This a trick question?" Dean smirked as he grabbed my beer off the desk and took a sip. "It's not like it's really recommended, but they don't monitor who you're seeing."

Struck me as being kinda illegal.

Dean ran a knuckle down along my ankle, looking at me with his eyebrows perked. "Having second thoughts, are ya?"

I smirked at him. Four months of lusting after this man and he was finally mine, they'd have to rip me away from him with an iron claw. "Nah, I'm thinking of the day I can put you in a home and claim all your pension money," I grinned as Dean laughed. And then I quieted a little. "What about you? You having second thoughts?"

Dean made a contemplative noise in his throat. "Well, you _do _drink all my beer, eat my food, hog my covers, and jump me in the shower..." I laughed and he grinned up at me. "Then again the rest of the Latin department wonders why I'm so happy all the time."

I felt the smile melt off my face while Dean just looked at me through those glasses, grinning, and I felt my heart break. I slipped away from the desk and leaned down to kiss him.

"I'm going to have a nap," I told him after a moment.

Dean checked his watch and then gave me the fish eye. "It's 6:30."

"Yeah, but I had to get up at an ungodly hour so I could jump you in the shower," I said, grinning at him and moving away from the desk.

Dean snorted. "Dinner's in an hour."

"Duly noted."

I padded into the bedroom slowly, swigging from my bottle of beer and setting it down on the bedside table before pulling off my socks and crawling into bed under the covers, rolling on my side to face the door so I could hear the scratching of Dean's pen on paper down the hall.

I would never let anyone convince me this was an unhealthy relationship. Never.

/


	5. Chapter 5

**A/N: **Very special thanks to **Ravenclaw992, happytide, Cleonie 'Jayne Mansfield' Quin, Lady Liesel, Guest, Miss Magenta Lestrange, ForeverACharmedOne, KorroksApostle, Clavis Salomonis, Lady Nerd, Lorien Urbani, corbsxx, **and **LandBeyondtheForest **for your reviews! :D

**Scythe**

**Chapter Five**

**/**

I was beginning to wonder how long I had to stand outside his office before I could come to the conclusion that Dr. Crane wasn't coming to our session.

I showed up an hour later, as requested, only to knock on the door three times and loiter outside when he didn't answer, looking at the two-week old posters on the bulletin boards and picking at my fingernails and trying not to look like some lovestruck student stalking her professor when administrators and other instructors for the psychology department gave me fish eyes while passing me in the hallway.

Profs always told us that if they didn't arrive for class in the first 20 minutes, it was a good indication that they weren't coming at all. I thought that was as good as any time to wait for Dr. Crane. Frankly, it would have been nice not to have to sit through session; I could have gone home, finished the rewrite of my paper proposal to hand in the next day, greeted Dean when he came home from class with nothing on but his dorky thick-framed glasses. Granted, our sessions were only a half hour long, but sometimes they felt like they took forever.

Seven minutes in, and while my book bag was starting to feel very heavy and I was coming up with more and more reasons as to why not having session would have been great, my hopes were shattered when I heard the all too distinctive, sharp footsteps that could have only belonged to one man coming down the hallway, closer and closer. I didn't want to make it seem like I was anxious to start session, so I didn't look up to watch him approach; on the contrary, I had to keep the disappointment at bay by folding my arms and looking down at my shoes.

Only when I heard the close rattling of keys did I look up. Dr. Crane's blue eyes were on me, and he gave me a small smile and a curt little nod. He looked annoyed. "Hanna, forgive me for being so late, I apologize."

I shrugged as he unlocked the door and opened it wide, allowing me to step in before following close behind and dropping his books down on the desk. I sat down and watched curiously as he enabled the answering machine for his phone, closed the door, and then sought out his notebook on his clustered desk.

"I was in a conference call that lasted a little longer than I had hoped," he explained as he rounded his chair and straightened out his jacket before sitting himself down, elegantly, draping one leg over the other. When he looked at me, he managed a little smile. "You weren't waiting too long, I hope?"

I found it rather interesting to catch him so off guard. I could tell he was one of those meticulous people who was always very punctual and absolutely hated when he was late for any function or gathering. His cheeks even looked a little pink, as though he had jogged from wherever he had taken his conference call, but then again it could have been the late afternoon light coming in through the window.

I shook my head. "No, not long at all."

"Good," he said, nodding, and he began to flip through his notebook, his eyes quickly fleeting over previous notes he had taken. "How has your week been so far?"

I sat back in my chair and thought about it for a moment, fighting the urge to tell Dr. Crane, in explicit detail, how I had jumped Dean in the shower which basically led to a two hour make out and foreplay session, naked, sopping wet, on top of Dean's expensive Egyptian cotton sheets. Maybe I could have shown him the bite on my shoulder and gotten him to guess where I got it from. I snickered inwardly, wondering if the man would kick me out of his office when I would finally tell him the bite came from Dean.

But only after a second or two, Dr. Crane looked up at me with an expectant look in his eyes, so I shook my head. "It's been fine. I've gotta redo a paper proposal for one of my classes...no biggie."

Dr. Crane frowned, and his eyes narrowed to me a little bit, as though he suspected I was hiding something. Truth be told, I really wanted to play the bite guessing game, but I knew it wouldn't impress him, prude that he was.

"How are you finding the weight of the semester so far?" he asked, politely.

I frowned at him, wondering why he was asking such a...strange question, given that we were only a few weeks into September and the real _oh my god_ phase of the semester hadn't started yet. I watched him and shrugged. "It's fine...just this one professor is being a bit demanding of our first paper."

Dr. Crane nodded and made a note in his notebook. It was really throwing me off, just how unprepared he seemed.

"I miss being in Dean's class," I heard myself say, for no real particular reason other than to see him snap back to attention. "He loved my papers, always gave me great marks."

I watched as he snorted just a tiny bit in his throat before turning his eyes down to his notebook, surveying his notes. I sat back and watched him; he really, _really _hated hearing about Dean, but then again it was probably because he was hired to hear what I had to say, not what I had to say about a professor he probably barely knew.

"Last time we met..." Dr. Crane said distantly as he looked over his notes. "We were discussing your stepmother, yes? Why don't we talk some more about her."

I rolled my eyes and groaned. I was not in the mood to be talking about the Kraken, even if bitching about her made me feel a little better about her being related to me. "There really isn't a whole lot more to tell."

"But there must be," Dr. Crane pressed, holding his pen between his long, white fingers and watching me very carefully. "There's a lot of animosity in you towards her...I'm sure it didn't just develop out of nothing."

"Yeah, well, it did," I told him, getting grumpy. "I go to his office one day, there she is, all fake tits and nails and hair extensions, smiling at me like we're fucking Barbie and Skipper, all best of friends,"

Dr. Crane listened carefully and jotted down quick notes before returning his eyes to me. It seemed he was liking this discussion, or at least found it fairly useful, so I continued.

"She called my Dad _Frankie_ right from the very beginning!" I exclaimed, my voice suddenly rising without really meaning it to. "A secretary to her boss, _Frankie_. How would _you _feel if _I _just out of the blue started calling _you_ Jonathan?"

Something strange happened when I mentioned Dr. Crane's first name. His jaw tightened a little, as if he was clenching his teeth, and his eyes widened just by the slightest, and for a moment I was worried that I had done something really wrong, like I had crossed the line when it came to doctor/patient ethics or whatever...

But then, after a moment, it passed, and Mr. Crane nodded a little and folded his fingers together, not looking at me for a moment, as though assessing my point.

I crossed my legs and continued, looking out the window. "And the bitch actually called me Jo," I shook my head, sneering a little at nothing in particular. "Acquainted all of five minutes, she goes ahead and calls me Jo. _Nobody _calls me Jo except my Dad and my aunt."

"Perhaps she was trying to connect with you on a personal level," Dr. Crane suggested carefully. "Seeings how she was...aspiring to find affection with your father."

"Yeah, well," I was getting so angry I could barely hold myself together. "Maybe they should have highlighted on _Nab Your Boss for his Money 101_ that you can use that trick on little kids, when they don't know any better, not on grown children."

I growled angrily in my throat, and it suddenly became very quiet in that office. I could hear kids outside the window; probably one of those huge intro psych classes had just let out and they were all meandering towards the student center. Dr. Crane was very silent, as though he were trying to assess what to say next.

"What does Dean call you?" he asked, rather quietly.

I looked at him and frowned a little. Oh, so suddenly he _wanted _to hear about Dean? That was a switch. "He calls me Hanna. Sometimes he calls me _Han_, for short, which I hate."

Dr. Crane dipped his chin a little and looked at me quizzically. "Why?"

I shook my head. "Because I'm not Harrison Ford flying the Millennium Falcon, for Chrissakes."

Dr. Crane shrugged, putting out his hands as if to say _well. _"Sounds to me like a nickname stemmed from affection. Surely you have a nickname for him as well?"

I stared at him, wondering just where the hell he was going with all this, but then I knew, and I wasn't going to fall for it. He'd already sullied the memory of the first sexual contact with Dean, I didn't want to give him the chance to ruin anything else. I sighed heavily and rubbed my face with one hand. "Why are we even talking about this?"

Dr. Crane took a deep breath in and sat back, watching me very intently. "Well, so far I haven't been able to assess a reason why your stepmother's position would be a threat to you, which you clearly feel it is."

I gaped at him. Had he not been _listening _to a _word_ I'd said?

But, anticipating my sudden unhappiness, Dr. Crane put up a hand to stop me before I could rip his head off. "That I'm _hearing_, Hanna. So far the only thing I'm really hearing from you about your stepmother is rather petty jealousy."

I couldn't help the laugh of disbelief that left my throat right then.

"_Jealousy?"_ I repeated, as if I hadn't quite heard him.

"Well-"

"All right, you know what disgusts me so much about her? And believe me, it isn't fucking _jealousy_, let's not be children here," I was leaning forward with my fingers biting into my kneecaps and my voice was getting uglier and uglier by the second. "She saw what she wanted and she took it, just like that. She wasn't gonna let anything get in her way."

Dr. Crane's nose was curled and he was on the brink of full out sneering at me when he leaned forward, challenging me, and stared at me with his great big blue eyes. "How is that any different from what you're doing with Dr. Roberts?"

I felt like he'd just slapped me across the face.

I opened my mouth to give him the tongue-lashing of his career, let him know exactly what I thought of him and his bullshit right at that moment. In all actuality, I should have just gotten up and stormed right out, left him sitting there with that stupid look on his face. Honestly, fuck him, fuck therapy. I didn't need this bullshit anymore than I needed a fucking toothache.

But the words didn't come. The insults were on the tip of the tongue, the justification for my relationship with Dean was right there, just waiting to be spilled into that awkward-as-ass air between us. But I was speechless, and I don't know why. It wasn't fear of what he would say in retaliation, I don't think.

How could he put me on the same level with the Kraken? _I_ pursued Dean out of love, _she_ pursued my Dad for his money.

"_W__**hat?**_"I spat at him.

Both finely trimmed brown eyebrows rose at me. "You said she saw what she wanted and she took it, just like that. Isn't that what you did with Dr. Roberts?"

I saw what he was saying, the asshole, but that didn't help how my fingernails bit into my knees and how my blood burned under my skin. I seriously wanted to hit him, just bitch slap him right across his smug face and march out of his office, never to come back, never to look at him ever again. And I'd tell Dean what he said, so in case he happened to call, Dean could bitch him out over the phone. And fuck the school and what they told Dad about my needing therapy, I didn't _need_ therapy.

And then the buzzer went off.

Crane kept his eyes on me, as if daring me to get out of my seat, and I just stared back at him, balling my hands into fists. He must have gauged how angry I was, because he was careful not to press the matter further. All he did was put up his hands.

"Hanna, these questions are not in judgement of _you_," he said, trying to sound reassuring, but I just wanted to laugh in his face. I knew he was judging me; he'd been judging me since the first time I sat in that chair and opened my mouth. "I am trying to get to the root of your anger. My questions today have a purpose, and I'd like to continue with them on Monday."

How I wanted to tell him to go fuck himself, turn over his coffee table and storm right out. Something had to be said, he had gone too far, he had trespassed, he had no _right _to suggest any of what he was suggesting, no right at all! Yet what could I have done? He had found a way to disarm me, to make me look foolish, to make me feel like a total heartless bitch.

And I didn't know why but I knew I couldn't let him get away with it. I should have agreed to see him on Monday, wished him a good weekend, taken my bag, left his office, and thrown a chair when I got back to Dean's place. Broken a plate or two, attacked Dean himself when he got home and engaged him in furious, angry sex.

But I didn't. I couldn't go without revenge.

I inhaled sharply through my nostrils, furiously, and then I leaned forward a little, resting my hands on my knees and staring right at him, right into those great big blue eyes. "Y'know my friend Lydia, the one I introduced you to yesterday? She wants to _**fuck**_you."

I watched carefully for an angry flicker in his eyes, for the curling of his lip, for that disgusting little sneer I was beginning to really hate and saw way too frequently. I was _itching _to see a simple hint of displeasure cross his features, and then I knew I could smile, skip out of his office, and definitely get a good night's sleep that night.

Dr. Crane didn't move a muscle. He simply. Didn't. _Move_.

And I felt the fun bubbling inside me deflate like a balloon when I realized he wasn't going to react the way I hoped he would. How was I hoping he would react? I didn't even know. All I knew was that I wanted a rise out of him, throw him off guard, get him all angry and flustered for making me feel so small and ridiculous.

I sat back in my chair and beheld as the man was as still as a statue, his eyes never flinching, his entire body just like a thing of stone, etched out of marble.

And then, after a moment, a smile. A real smile on his pink lips, and I wouldn't be telling the truth if I told you that smile didn't scare the _shit _out of me, didn't install real fear in me for one simple fleeting moment. And I was immobilized; I couldn't move. I stared at him as though he had revealed he was going to announce to the world my terrible secret and there was absolutely nothing I could do to stop it from happening.

"Well, you'll tell her it's...an impossibility," Slowly, Dr. Crane closed his notebook and set it down on the coffee table, still smiling, and then he looked up at me, startling me. "Won't you?"

There was a deep, dark seriousness in his voice but there was also a hint of sing-song in it as well. It made me feel more and more uncomfortable, made my sweater feel extra itchy on my skin, made my hands feel dirty. I stood up in a hurry, watching as he stood up fluidly, maintaining that creepy little smile, straightening out his jacket and adjusting his glasses on his nose. Nothing more was needed to be said. So I picked up my book bag and started for the door.

That was when I heard it.

"Do _you _want to **fuck** me, Hanna?"

I stopped, one hand gripping the doorknob, one foot crossed over the threshold into the rest of the world, allowing me to escape from whatever twilight zone made up Crane's office. I spun on my heel. "_Ex__**cuse me?**_"

I was looking to come face to face with Crane and give him an earful, a real telling off; I had a mind to tell him to lock his doors and hide under his bed because I was going to tell Dean and who knew what Dean was going to do.

...But Dr. Crane had his back to me, and was rummaging through papers on his desk. Almost as if he hadn't asked a question at all. I stood there with an ugly sneer on my face, and watched as Dr. Crane looked at me over his shoulder, blinking innocently, a look of total nonchalance on his face.

After considering me for a moment, his brow furrowed confusedly, and he shrugged a little. "I didn't say anything."

_What? Bull__**shit **_had hadn't said anything!

And I lashed forward to tell him so and watched the surprise suddenly erupt on his face, in his blue eyes. I stopped myself then because of the look he was giving me. I could tell when people were lying.

And he wasn't lying. He hadn't said anything, he really hadn't.

But it _was _him! It was his voice, I had _heard _it! I heard it as if he had spoken just over my shoulder!

Crane frowned further, and put down the papers he had in his hand, and stepped towards me. Instinctively, I took a step back.

"Hanna," he said, and put out a hand to me, as if I was threatening him with a gun and he was trying to coax me out of it. His eyes were on me and they were lit with concern. Yeah, I'm not even kidding. _Concern_.

"Hanna," he repeated, watching me. "What did you hear?"

I stared at him, and I felt my chest tightening. I took a step back, my hand tightening on the doorknob. I swallowed and stared at him. "I heard you say..."

I trailed out and quieted, realizing...how could I possibly repeat what I..._thought_ he'd just said? He hadn't said it. And yet he _had _to have...

Crane tipped his chin at me, his eyes narrowing to me. He had an expression on his face like he was on the cusp of discovering something. "_What _did you hear me say?"

I frowned and shook my head a little, taking another step back, pulling the strap to my bag over my shoulder. "Nothing."

Crane gave me a severe look, his hand reaching out as if he meant to grab my arm. "Hanna-"

I stepped back. "_Nothing_."

I slammed the door behind me and walked down the hallway as fast as I could without sprinting, holding the strap of my bag as I went.

I was _not _hearing voices. I was _not, _and there was _no __**way **_I was gonna let Crane suggest otherwise.

/

I came home to find Dean sitting on the couch with a beer in one hand and a paper in the other, and when I came in and kicked off my shoes he looked at me and smiled. He was wearing those damn glasses that made me want to jump him.

"Hey," he greeted, watching as I set my bag down. "How's your day been?"

I sighed a little, looking down at my feet. "Draining."

Biggest understatement ever.

I rubbed my face before rounding the couch, collapsing next to him, and resting my cheek against his shoulder, and then shifting closer to rest against his chest when he put his arm around me, offering me the beer, which I merely shook my head at. I nodded to the paper he was holding. "That my proposal rewrite?"

"Yes ma'am." I could feel the boom of his deep voice echoing through his chest.

I took in a deep, quiet breath. "And?"

He shrugged a little. "Well, you've got a good thesis statement, but I don't know how you think you can write this thing using just Livy and Polybius."

I squeezed my eyes closed. It was _so _what I didn't need to hear right then. "It's a strong enough primary source."

Dean looked down at me over the rim of his glasses with this look on his face, as if I'd told him I could climb Mt. Everest without oxygen tanks. "For a 3000 word paper?"

I shrugged as I sat up, leaning forward to rub my face a little more. I felt so disoriented and strange, and discussing homework wasn't making it any better. "I'll make it work."

I stood up and went to the coat hangar where I began to unbutton my sweater. It felt too hot in that apartment all of a sudden. I could feel Dean's eyes on my back. "Hanna-"

Smiling just a little, I looked at him over my shoulder. "Don't even worry about it, oh ye of little faith. So long as Greenwell likes it, it's all good."

Listening as he took a swig of beer, I hung my sweater up on the coat hangar and massaged my shoulder under my tank top strap. "Yeah but Hanna, this is _me_ reading it, and _I'm_ telling you you need more primary sources."

Starting to feel aggravated, I squeezed my eyes closed but tried to keep myself calm. It wasn't his fault, none of it was his fault. I'd asked him to look at my proposal rewrite, after all, just that morning over breakfast before we left for class. He was a professor, he was telling me the truth, he was there to make suggestions that would make the stupid thing better.

But I knew I wasn't mad at him. Not at all. Nevertheless, I couldn't help the ugliness that had poisoned my mood.

"God, you are such a killjoy," I said as I turned to him and walked past him to go into the kitchen.

"Well look at it this way," Dean called after me, no offense taken, and I heard him drop my paper on the coffee table and get up from the couch to lumber in after me. "At least it's _me_ telling you now and not Greenwell as he hands you another B-."

I went to the fridge for a bottle of water and let out a heavy sigh as I screwed off the cap. "Swell."

When I turned around, Dean was leaning against the island, swigging from his beer. "...So how was your session today?"

I snorted a little in my throat. How exactly would I explain _that_ interesting occurrence?

"Interesting. Dr. Crane asked me if I wanted to fuck him."

The silence that came after was only too expected. I could literally feel Dean's face scrunching as he took in what I'd just told him. Part of me wanted him to slam his fist through the wall and demand where Crane's office was.

Instead, I watched as he smiled and laughed a little in disbelief. "...What?"

I sipped from my water bottle and leaned back against the counter, watching as the _what the fuck _look I'd been anticipating began to seep into his face.

I stared at him as serious as I could be. "He asked me if I wanted to fuck him."

Dean stared at me for moment, but I could see the laughter glittering in his brown eyes before it erupted from his throat. I watched him, vanilla, as he recovered and shook his head, and went to open the fridge door. "...Yeah, _okay_ Hanna. I don't think he did."

...

The scary thing was, I don't think he did, either.

/


	6. Chapter 6

**A/N: **Thanks so much for your reviews **corbsxx, SaxonBandwagon, Ravenclaw992, happytide, EmpireX, KorroksApostle, ForeverACharmedOne, Lady Liesel, walawalabadkoala, Cleonie 'Jayne Mansfield' Quin, linalove, ThermodynamicMiracle, pourquoibella, Clavin Salomonis, LandBeyondtheForest, itspeanutbutterjellytimex3, Lady Nerd, Untitled, Zeny, CrazyinAbottle, HowlynMad, **and **Fan O' Fanfic**! :D

This chapter is a bit of filler and a little short, sorry about that guys. But I think you'll like where it's headed. :P

**Scythe**

**Chapter Six**

**/**

It was Saturday, O blessed Saturday, and as I slowly regained consciousness, met with pale sunlight streaming in through the window, I rolled onto my side and collided with a very dead-asleep Dean, with his graying black hair askew on the pillow and his mouth open. I cuddled into his side, still too tired to bother getting up, and resting my head against his breast I listened to the steady pump of his heartbeat, soothing enough to send me into sleep once more.

Only I didn't sleep, I simply dozed, focusing on Dean's heartbeat and massaging my fingertips into his curly chest hair, thinking back to when we had class together, and how I was always so excited to see him walk through the door, to see what he was wearing, because he dressed the most casual of all my professors and yet looked the best out of all of them every single time. I remember around Valentine's Day he grew a beard that I absolutely hated, and he must have known because he shaved it after one particular class where I had glared at him all throughout lecture. That being said, I probably wasn't the only one. Girls in the class absolutely loved him; I remember watching a few of them approach him once and ask if he was teaching anything in the springtime, which made him laugh but made me sneer. They weren't even being careful about showing their attraction. I never would have asked such an obvious question.

I remember every time he looked at me, and I do mean right _at _me, with his smiling brown eyes, I would feel my breath catch in my chest and my face go hot, and I was always so tempted to smile back at him but never did, in case anyone saw.

The first time I approached him after class to ask a question, he grinned so widely at me I thought I was going to melt, and I stared at his hands and arms as he crossed them over his chest, just imagining how he could rip the clothes right off me. I spent many an evening either in bed or in the bathtub thinking up the raunchiest fantasies I could (which led to some pretty intense orgasms, I don't mind telling you). Lydia thought I was sick and there was no way he would ever sleep with a student; she said I was crazy and to get over him and I tried, oh man, how I tried.

The first time I woke up in Dean's bed after officially moving in, I felt weirdly homesick and very strange, almost like having cold feet or something. But he woke up and gathered me in his arms and pulled me into his chest and sleepily muttered "Morning," into my hair and that was when I knew I wouldn't want to be anywhere else.

This morning was like that first morning, lazy and sleepy and with nobody else but him, and I was drifting off once more when suddenly I heard someone in the room politely clear his throat.

When I looked up, I was shocked to see Dr. Crane sitting at the foot of the bed, all adorned in a suit and tie, holding his damn little notebook and pen, smiling at me as I snapped to attention.

"The _fuck _are you doing here?!" I asked, suddenly very wide awake.

"You missed our session, Hanna," Crane said, and tapped his watch with one finger. "I thought we agreed not to miss a session unless it was an emergency-"

"I didn't miss session, you lunatic!" I shrieked a him. "Get out of here!"

Crane promptly ignored me, looking down at his notebook and clicking his pen. "I couldn't help but notice you're not using birth control, care to explain why?"

I gaped at him. **Bastard! **Who the hell did he think he was?!

"You do know how risky it is, don't you?" Crane asked, turning his blue unflinching eyes towards me and staring me down with both eyebrows raised. "You're 25, healthy, the ideal specimen to be impregnated-"

I went to throw the covers off me and storm over to hit him, throw him out, call the police, _something_ to make him stop, make him shut his filthy fucking mouth, but I couldn't, I was frozen. My limbs wouldn't respond to my demands. I looked at my arms, wondering why I couldn't move them, and Crane just stared at me with a taunting smile teasing on his lips.

"I'm warning you, Crane," I said, pointing my finger at him while he just cooly stared back at me. "If you don't shut the _**fuck **_up right now, I'll wake Dean up and he will beat your skull into the floorboards!"

Crane just stared at me, daring me to do it, tipping his chin a little. "Go ahead, wake him. I'd like to hear his side of things. I'd particularly like to hear his reasoning for _cumming_ inside of you."

"You disgusting _mother__**fucker**_-" I snarled and hurled a pillow at him. "**GET OUT!" **

Suddenly Crane's expression because dangerously angry and his eyes were narrowing and penetrating. "Hanna, you are _not _responding to treatment, we need to dig deeper."

"I think we need to **stop **therapy altogether!" I sneered at him. "I don't need it!"

"_**I **_think you do," Crane countered, coldly, in a no-nonsense tone. "What, are you afraid of what I might find when I get inside your pretty little head-"

"All right, that's it," I snapped, and turned to my side. "Dean-"

But the bed was empty.

I frowned, and frantically looked around. Dean couldn't have gotten up without me noticing, where did he go? He was nowhere to be seen, and as I looked Crane just sat there smiling that nasty little smile at me, like he knew something I didn't.

"He's not here, Hanna," he told me, matter-of-factly. "He's not. It's just you and me."

And then he giggled, this obscene, frightening little giggle, that couldn't have possibly come from him and yet where else could it have come from? I stared at him, at the laughter brimming in his blue eyes, at the corners of his lips forming a psychotic little smile.

"Just _you_..." his voice became thicker and dark, distorted, and his eyes were wild. "_and_ _**me.**_"

I screamed, and came face to face with my pillow.

I sat up, my heart thundering against my ribcage, looking at the end of the bed. Crane wasn't there watching me; the room was bathed with mid-morning light. I breathed heavily, frantically, allowing myself to come back to reality.

Just a dream. Just a dream.

Dean wasn't beside me in bed, but the door was wide open and I could smell coffee, a sure sign he was awake and moving about. I lay on my back for awhile, allowing myself to calm down, breathe. It was just a dream.

I got up after awhile, because I knew there was no way I'd get back to sleep, and I went into the bathroom and started up the hot water in the shower, pulling my pajama top off and inspecting my face in the mirror. This pale, frightened face looked back at me, and I shook my head, trying to get it out of my head.

Then, I looked down at the drawer in the vanity and pulled it open, picking up my birth control pills and inspecting them suspiciously, as though they were placebos or something. I couldn't help but think, as I inspected the pack in my hand, to the point in the dream where Crane asked why I wasn't using birth control...what did it mean? I obviously _was _using birth control, so why...

But I shook the thought out of my head and returned the pills to the drawer. It was just a dream, some fucked-up dream, and I repeated this to myself like a mantra as I slipped out of my pajamas and into the shower.

Just a fucked up dream, seriously, what did any of it mean? I washed my hair idly, rinsing it, wondering why Crane of all people decided to make an appearance. And the questions he had asked...so personal, so intensely personal...I felt dirty all over, like I was covered in grease, so I scrubbed at my skin with exfoliating soap until I felt better. I turned off the water, opened the door -

and screamed.

Dean reacted, his eyes going wide, appropriately startled, but then he recovered easily, laughing his booming laugh. "Fuck, you scared me!" he said, handing me the towel he was holding in one hand.

"I scared _you_?" I asked, wrapping myself in the towel.

Dean just sat there on the toilet, watching as I knotted the towel around my frame and started to brush out my soaked hair, and his face fell a little. "Jesus, Han, are you okay? You look like you've seen a ghost."

I stared at myself in the mirror. I did, too, I looked freaked, like I was expecting some axe murderer to come charging in and hack me to pieces while I stood there in nothing but a towel. I turned towards him and drank from his coffee cup, while he drew a a fingertip down the length of my naked, wet arm.

"Bad dreams," I sighed.

/

Sunday was a work day, and Dean was surprisingly diligent about it. We sat at the kitchen table, me with the rewrite of my paper proposal (with several more primary sources, thanks to my bonny prof's advice) and Dean was marking the last of the bundle of term papers. Our deal was, we get everything done, and then we could get pizza for dinner and watch a movie, or go right to bed, something along those lines, whatever struck our fancy when the time came. It was incentive to get everything done and right so it was ready for school in the morning.

And it was going remarkably well until the phone rang. It never occurred to me to tell Dean to let it ring.

"Hello?" Dean answered, and I watched his face light up. "Hey Lydia, how's it going? ...Uh huh..."

I looked at him and smiled. Even though the idea of Dean and I together made her feel a little squeamish from time to time, Dean was still one of her favourite professors, and even though she would never admit it, I could tell she really liked being on a conversation basis with him now that he and I were seeing each other.

"Yeah, no, she's right here," Dean nodded to me and I slowly got up. "So who's teaching your History of Alexander this term? Rowsell, huh? Does he still have that theory that Alexander died of cholera?"

I shook my head at him and took the phone. "Give 'er here, _associate _professor."

Dean grinned at me and went back to the table. I watched his ass until he sat down and pressed the earpiece to my ear. "Hey Lydia."

"Hanna," she said in her no-nonsense tone. "Your Dad called again."

I swallowed a sigh and pulled the cord around the corner, out of the kitchen into the hallway, out of earshot from Dean. "What'd he say this time?"

"I thought you were gonna give him your new number," she pressed.

I shook my head. "I haven't had a chance to tell him-"

"Apparently not," she said, on the brink of snapping at me. "He mentioned how he keeps missing you on the phone, I had to tell him you were at a birthday party. I thought you said you'd tell him."

I sighed heavily. I knew she was right, I hated that she had to keep lying for me. I knew if our roles were reversed, I'd be just as a pissed off.

"I'm sorry," I told her. "I know I've gotta tell him, I keep meaning to-"

"Well you've got a perfect chance," she said. "He called to say they were on their way home tomorrow."

I frowned. It seemed far too soon for the honeymoon to be over...but then I remembered that it was the last week of September. Yeah, they'd been honeymooning for three weeks, it was time to return to normal. Fuck, the very last thing I needed...

"Okay, I'll uh..." I rubbed my face, trying to decide what to do while Lydia listened expectantly on the other line. "I'll give them a call and leave a message on their answering machine, give them my new number."

"Okay," she said, but she didn't sound too convinced. "Anyway, my 1:30pm class was cancelled for tomorrow, you wanna meet for lunch?"

I groaned. "I can't, I gotta go to my session with what's his name."

"Oh yeah?" Lydia asked, her voice lifting. "Maybe I could go to your session for you?"

I rolled my eyes and smiled a little. "Believe me, if we could pull it off, you'd be going every time. I'll see you Tuesday."

"K, see ya." Lydia said and hung up.

I hung up the phone and staggered into the kitchen, back to the table. What a fun week it was going to be, telling my father about moving in with Dean and seeing Crane for another one of our heart to hearts.

I sighed as I collapsed down in my seat at the table. "When's the next stat holiday, I think we need to run away to Tahiti."

Dean snorted loudly. "Dream on, my love."

/

I stood at the door to Crane's office, seriously contemplating just not going in, just going home and calling him to say I was sick. I'd been dreading the appointment all damn day, and even though I knew once I got in there that it was only a half hour and wouldn't take long, as soon as I got in there time would just stop. I knew he was going to bring up how I'd heard him talk when he didn't at the end of last session, and I didn't want to talk about it at all, I just wanted to forget it even happened.

That filthy dream was still in my mind as I knocked on the door; a moment later, he opened it, giving me a tiny little smile as he nodded to me in greeting. "Hanna, good afternoon. Please come in."

I went in, begrudgingly, and sat myself down in the usual patient chair, watching as he closed the door and sat down across from me, elegantly as ever. When his eyes met mine, they were alert yet relaxed, and he managed a smile.

"How was your weekend?"

Almost as if he really had invaded my home, knew it was driving me crazy, and was rubbing it in. Prick. "Fine."

He nodded and looked at his notebook, and then he settled himself into his seat, making a face like he was bracing himself for a long lecture. "There's something very particular I'd like to discuss today."

I swallowed a groan and crossed my arms. We were gonna talk about the hearing of the voice, oh goody gumdrops. "What's that?"

Crane looked right at me, his big blue eyes prepped to attention. I braced myself.

"Hanna, how familiar are you with the Oedipus Complex?"

**/**


	7. Chapter 7

**A/N: **Very special thanks to **happytide, Cleonie 'Jayne Mansfield' Quin, Lady Liesel, Lady Nerd, EmpireX, Ravenclaw992, KorroksApostle, jen, Zeny, Fan O' Fanfic, pourqouibella, Miss Magenta Lestrange, linalove, SaxonBandwagon, jeanwolverine52895, KnoKnayme, Clavis Salmonis, peskyparker, DearNoah, ElektraMackenzie, asharas, MaxT, **and **TymanTB **for your reviews! I'm sorry I wasn't able to respond to your reviews personally; it's been one helluva busy summer. :L But I've got some time off before school starts again, so expect lots of update and lots of feedback. :D

I can't stress this enough: _try _to enjoy this update. You'll see what I mean. :S

**Scythe**

**Chapter Seven**

**/**

I couldn't believe what the **fuck** I'd just heard. _Oedipus complex?_

"This better have something to do with Oedipus meeting the Sphinx..." I said, my voice already in a state of great disdain. "And not that _other _part of the story."

Crane lifted his chin a little, his blue eyes flashing a little as he crossed his legs and cradled his hands in his lap. "So you're familiar with it?"

I snorted, looking at him a bit sideways. Who _didn't _know the story? "Well I am a history major, it'd be a sad sign if I didn't know that story."

"And what about it's feminine equivalent?" he asked, settling himself back in his chair but keeping his eyes very fixed on me. "The Electra Complex?"

"Electra..." I knew the name, it rang a bell from the Classical Myth class I'd taken during my first year. It wasn't a requirement, but it was interesting nonetheless. And then, of course, it clicked. Euripides, one of the famous tragedies. "The daughter of Agamemnon."

Crane tipped his chin and gave me a tentative little smile. "Precisely. When Agamemnon was killed, Electra and her brother conspired against their mother to avenge their father."

"I see..." I mused. I don't know why, but I relaxed a little. Maybe some of it was starting to come together, make a little sense. I pressed my lips together thoughtfully and curled my legs up under my chin. "So you think I should kill the Kraken and save my Dad before she has the chance to...what, suck the life out of him?"

Crane's tentative little smile was gone and he just stared at me, unimpressed as ever.

I, on the other hand, felt a little giddy. I laughed a little, thinking it through. "Christ, Dr. Crane, you may really be on to something here."

Crane breathed in sharply through his nostrils and then let it out in a sigh. I guess it wasn't exactly what he was getting at. Still, I couldn't help the smile that played on my lips. It was fun to turn his own ideas around on him from time to time.

"I think it's clear the feelings you're exhibiting are caused by an adherent loss of your father to another woman," Dr. Crane said, in a rather matter-of-fact tone, and he straightened up and regarded me very seriously. "So of course you have feelings of animosity towards her."

I snorted and frowned at him a little. "Yeah, but I'm not about to kill her so that I can move back in with my dad."

"No..." Crane said, agreeing, and then his expression became very grave, albeit attentive. He fixed me with his blue stare very intensely. It made me frown, and I could feel the frown hardening my features as I watched him. He seemed to deliberately take his time.

After awhile, Crane held out his hands, almost imploringly. "Because...in a sense, you've already found a suitable replacement for your father."

...

I uncurled my legs and sat forward. What the _hell _was he getting at? "...What?"

I watched Dr. Crane's face. "In Dr. Roberts."

I sat there, blinking at him, letting it all sink in, and then my stomach gave an uncomfortable churn, so much so that I had to lean forward because, for a split second, I thought I was going to lose my cookies all over his coffee table. "...Oh my god-"

Crane leaned forward, raising a hand, as if he was anticipating an onslaught. "Hanna-"

"So..." I was trying to put it together in my head, thinking he could have possibly had the _gall _to suggest something so fucking disgusting, but there was nothing else I could deduce from what he'd just said. I pressed my fingers to my temples to try to steady myself, keep myself from losing my shit. "So you're suggesting I'm looking for a new father...in _Dean_?"

Crane sighed a little, as though I had completely misinterpreted his meaning, but I was pretty sure I knew what he meant. "Hanna-"

I leaned forward, clasping the arms of the chair I was sitting in as I nearly sent myself right out of the chair. I scowled at him. "That's _disgusting_! I'm _fucking_ Dean, I don't want him to be my...daddy!"

Crane settled his hands in his lap, looking absolutely defeated, as though his plan for an interesting conversation had failed miserably, and I sat back and fumed, with my arms crossed over my chest, not looking at him because I was pretty sure he would have burst into flames, the way I was feeling. I turned my attention out to the window, feeling furious and sick all at the same time.

I couldn't _believe _what he'd just suggested. I wanted to grab my backpack and storm right on out of there and not look back, maybe flip him the finger on my way, but I tried to calm myself down. I tried to convince myself that there had to be some merit to what he was suggesting; he surely wasn't just bringing this up out of the blue...

After a moment, Crane looked at me with his blue eyes, soft and yet impatient all at the same time. "Hanna, it's more common than you think, believe me."

"I don't care if it is common, it's disgusting!" I snarled at him rather quietly, dangerously. "Yeah, maybe I resent the fact my Dad is more devoted to the Kraken than he is to me, but I'm not looking for another daddy, okay?"

Dr. Crane's eyes were on me fiercely; he wasn't backing down. "Hanna, could you be compensating the loss of a nurturing father by having sex with a man who is old enough to be your father?"

My stomach gave another unfortunate lurch, and I shuddered quite violently and curled my legs up under my chin once again, not looking at him, trying to back myself up into the chair as much as I could. It wasn't true, it _wasn't __**true**_. When I first laid eyes on Dean, my father wasn't...okay, so maybe he'd been dating the Kraken, but I wasn't...Dean didn't remind me of...I was _attracted _to Dean because he reminded me of a god, not because he reminded me of my father-

Suddenly I just wanted to disappear, and my stomach was so upset, and I felt so disgusting and rotten all of a sudden that I had the utmost urge to burst into tears and just sit there crying, staring out the window, not looking at Crane, not saying a word.

Crane must have felt it, too. I heard him sigh a little, but it wasn't aggravated, it was more...disappointed, maybe. As much as I didn't want him to say anything else, anything that might have made me feel worse than I already was, I knew he wasn't finished. I listened as he placed his notebook on the coffee table, and I knew he was leaning forward in his seat because I could _feel _his aura radiating off him.

"Hanna?" he began quietly, his voice soft and gentle, for the first time ever, but I still couldn't look at him. "It really is much more common than you think; from infancy, we bond to the parent of the opposite sex, and in certain periods in our development, that bond takes on a sexual nature in which we desire to possess the parent sexually."

I sighed so heavily, you'd think I'd just been told by a doctor that I had two weeks to live or something. I didn't care what he said, I was _not _looking to have sex with my father, and I was _not _fucking Dean just because I _couldn't _fuck my father. Jesus, the whole thing was just so repulsive and disgusting that I couldn't even think about it, it just made my stomach acid burn.

But at the same time, when looking at it from the big picture...Dean did resemble my father, on a level. They both had dark hair and dark eyes...Dean was conventionally more handsome and bigger than my Dad-

For the love of _fuck, __**why **_was I comparing them?!

I buried my face in my arms, shaking my head. It wasn't true...it wasn't true...

"...Hanna?" Crane asked after a moment of silence had passed between us. "Are you all right?"

I raised my eyes to look outside his window, at the leaves turning orange on the tree, and once again I wiped my eyes and shook my head. "I think I'm gonna be sick."

Crane uncrossed his legs, the way a parent makes a run for _the bucket_ when the kid's about to barf. "Can I get you something? Water?"

I didn't answer him, not even with a shake or nod of my head. I just stared out the window, at the sun on the grass, at the kids walking by, couples holding hands...holding hands with same-aged partners.

I sniffled miserably, pressing the heel of my hand against my cheekbone, fighting the urge to just break down and sob, god knows I wanted to. Instead, I just shook my head a little, and whispered. "Why the fuck am I even here?"

But, for the first time since starting therapy, the answer seemed far too clear to me.

Crane sighed, rather sadly, and though I didn't even look at him, I could feel the look he was giving me. Probably one of pity, one that said he didn't _want _to expose the truth to me, but he knew he had to, and now that it was done, he felt shitty...if the man was capable of feeling any kind of remorse.

After awhile, Crane straightened out in his chair, and spoke rather softly. "...Perhaps we should stop for today."

I just stared out the window, sniffling like a child who'd lost the only sense of real comfort she had. "Yeah, maybe we should."

**/**

I came home feeling exhausted, annoyed, and sick, and to my utmost displeasure, Dean was sitting in the living room reading when I came walking in the door. I'd desperately hoped he'd be asleep.

"Hey," he said, closing his book and uncrossing his legs to lean forward, as though he meant to get up, but he simply sat there and looked at me through his thick-framed glasses. "You're late tonight. You fail a test or something?"

I scoffed a little; he was even beginning to sound like my Dad. I let my backpack fall heavily to the floor and then winced when the noise hit my head like a gong. "I've been drinking off the effects of my session with Dr. DumbFuck."

Dean smirked a little, but he must have gauged by my overall disposition that I wasn't finding it too funny, because he stood up and looked at me with his eyebrows piqued. "Is he going into the whole Freud thing now? Killed your father to marry your mother type deal?"

I paused and stared at where I'd kicked off my shoes. _What? _How could he have _guessed _that? I straightened up and stared at him, scowling. "...What?"

Dean shrugged. "Y'know, the Oedipus complex, although in your case it'd be the Electra complex..." He trailed out and I watched as his facial expression changed slightly to one of confusion. I could feel the scowl getting heavy on my face; that must have done it.

"What?" he asked innocently.

"Okay, so..." I rubbed my temple to ward off the headache that was starting to burn in my head. "Does Crane call you up to tell you what I tell him or something?"

My voice sounded angrier than I meant it to be, but I was too appalled to care right at that moment. There was something just _way _too uncanny about how he guessed what Crane and I had been talking about earlier that day. How could he possibly have pulled that out of thin air based on how little I had said about the whole session?

Dean frowned and shook out his shoulders. "What are you getting so worked up about? It's like the most common thing the psychs talk about."

"Yeah well I _don't_ wantto talk about it!" I snarled, furiously. "Bad enough I have to sit with Crane and talk about it while my head starts to gather blood and threaten to blow!"

There was something about the way Dean was looking at me that made me shake my head and walk towards the kitchen; there was something coming to surface and I could see it in his dark eyes. He knew I was accusing him of something...trouble was I didn't know what I was accusing him of. Furthermore I didn't even want to discuss it, so I went to the fridge and fished out a bottle of beer, listening to Dean's padded footsteps of his bare feet on the hardwood as he came up behind me.

"Hanna, what's the matter?" he asked, softly, his voice concerned but cautious.

I squeezed my eyes closed and sighed heavily, closing the fridge door and grabbing the bottle-cap opener magnet hanging on the fridge to open it. "Didn't I _just _say I don't want to talk about it? Jesus..."

"Calm down," Dean said, and I could tell he was getting a little annoyed. "I was only asking-"

"Well _don't!" _I snapped, turning towards him, wanting to bite his head right off.

"Why are you getting so angry?" Dean asked, frowning, holding out his arms as if to say _what the hell. _

"I'm not angry, I'm _fine_," I bit at him.

I didn't feel fine. I felt sick.

Dean took a step forward, reaching to touch my elbow with his hand. "I think you've had a bit too much to drink."

"Really," I laughed in disbelief after I'd swallowed a mouthful of beer, and I pulled my elbow into my body, recoiling from him as if his fingers were burning, and I could see the confusion line his face. "For Chrissakes, what are you, my fuckin..."

I stopped myself before it could slip out of my mouth. And then the words didn't have to, because the tears were suddenly pinching at my eyes and I pressed the heel of my hand into one eye to stop them from coming, and when I reached over to put the beer bottle on the counter, I stumbled over my lousy footing and nearly went crashing to the floor.

Dean grabbed me and held me up. "Whoa, careful-"

The moment I felt his hands on me and his arms around me, I felt my stomach give a sudden, disgusted lurch. Fighting back the tears I pressed my hands against him and shoved him away. "Don't, Dean! Just don't! Just leave me alone!"

I meant to go storming out of the kitchen at that moment, but I was so drunk that all I could do was walk towards the table and catch the ledge with both hands before I sent myself crashing to the floor.

"Hanna-"

I snarled under my breath. Why wasn't he _fucking getting it_?

"Get a-_way from me_!" I snarled, pushing myself away from the kitchen table and going back into the living room, but I could feel Dean hot at my heels, probably to harass me a little more, and probably to make sure I didn't fall down flat on my face.

"Hanna, what the hell is going on?" I heard him growl at my back; he was getting angry. I'd only ever seen Dean get really angry once, and it frightened me, and I knew I should have been frightened then, but I was just so furious with him. I just wanted him to leave me alone, why wouldn't he leave me alone? "Hanna, I'm sitting here, you come home and you bite my head off, what did I do?"

I sat down heavily in one of the armchairs, pressing a hand against my forehead. My head was really starting to hurt at that point. "Jesus, Dean, I ask you to leave me alone, why can't you just fucking leave me alone? I don't even want to look at you right now."

Silence settled between the two of us right then. I could feel his eyes hard on the back of my head and I tried to ignore him, to mentally tell him to just let it be and go to his office, or go to bed, so that I could sit there in the dark, sober up a little, and think things over. But he wasn't going to go. Instead he came around to face me, and at first I thought he was going to bend down to my level to look me square in the eye, but he didn't. I curled back into the armchair as much as I could; his presence was strong and angry.

"...What did Crane tell you?"

I closed my eyes and bowed my chin so I wouldn't have to look at him. "Nothing-"

"It must have been something you two talked about," Dean insisted, and sat down on the edge of the coffee table, facing me. I could feel the anger ebbing off him. "What, did he finally come out and say we shouldn't be seeing each other? Cause it sure seems like that's what you're wanting to hear."

I rose my eyes and looked at him, my jaw hitting the floor, and he was sitting there scowling at me. Had he honestly said what I _thought _he said? That I _wanted _Crane to tell me that our relationship was unhealthy and that it needed to end, after everything we'd been through, after everything _I'd _been through, hiding the relationship from my father? From people at school?

I shook my head at him. I couldn't believe his gall. "God you are such an asshole. You think I _want _people to tell me this isn't gonna work?"

"Well it sure sounds like you and Crane have come to some conclusions," Dean growled.

I bowed my head. This was so, _so _fucked; I was suddenly so furious, I couldn't even look at him. I didn't _want _to look at him. I didn't want to look at him for the rest of the fucking night.

Hurriedly I got up, nearly sending myself crashing down to the floor, underestimating just how tipsy I actually was, and moved past Dean towards the coat hanger, where I struggled to actually get my coat unhooked, getting angrier and angrier.

"Where are you going now?" Dean asked, indignantly.

Finally getting ahold of my coat, I started to put it on, not looking at him. "Away."

I heard him stand up from where he sat on the coffee table, and every single step towards me just made me curl my fingers in my coat material.

"Hanna," he said, his voice sharp and annoyed. "You're drunk, it's 11:30 at night-"

He reached out and put a hand on my shoulder, presumably to get me to take my coat off, but I ripped myself away from him, going towards the door. The last thing I wanted was for him tofucking touch me.

"For chrissakes, Dean," I snarled at him, over my shoulder. "Just leave me alone!"

Again Dean came towards me, this time taking ahold of my arm. "I'm not letting you leave like this-"

Though his voice sounded a little softer, not quite as angry, I wrenched my arm away from him, turned on him, and was just screaming at the top of my lungs without even realizing I was doing it. "_Don't_! Just don't! Just _leave_ me the _**fuck **__alone_!"

I really was drunker than I thought I was, and I knew I shouldn't have left. But as I stared up at Dean, who looked at me with an expression mixed with anger and hurt, I just knew I didn't have the patience to put up with him for the rest of the night, or the next day, for that matter. There was no way I could stay there, not when I was feeling so, _so _angry.

Finally, Dean shook his head and shrugged his shoulders. "...Fine."

I grabbed my backpack off the floor by the door, struggled for a moment to turn the knob, and slammed the door as hard as I could on my way out.

/**/**


	8. Chapter 8

**A/N: **Very special thanks to **EmpireX, xmudblood, MaxT, Lady Nerd, Clavis Salomonis, honeybeeze, Raziri123, pourquoibella, ZenyZootSuit, Ravenclaw992, jeanwolverine52895, KorroksApostle, KnoKnayme, ElektraMackenzie, ForeverACharmedOne, Dabberly, Miss Magenta Lestrange, Lauren Kassidy, Artistic Punk, **and **Lady Liesel. **

**Scythe**

**Chapter Eight**

**/**

I'd forgotten how the couch smelled like walnuts. Course that was only when you got your nose right down into the cushions. I curled up tighter into a fetal position, impossibly tangled in the folds of a huge blanket, and I stared at the TV although I didn't really see what was on. I cried long and hard and listened as Lydia got up and moved around the apartment, careful to avoid the living room where I'd been holed up for the last two days.

It was lucky that I was able to remember his class schedule so I was able to go back to the apartment when he wasn't going to be there to grab my books for class and whatnot. If he knew I'd been there when he wasn't, so what; I refused to go crawling back, even though I knew that our argument probably wasn't his fault. Not his fault at all. But in thinking back to it, it hurt me that he'd suggest Crane and I were...I dunno, _conspiring_ against our relationship, that I'd just been waiting to hear someone tell me our relationship was unhealthy, and that was that. I didn't think it was possible for him to go there, and yet he had, and the more I thought about it, the more it broke my heart.

I went to class when Lydia badgered me and lectured me on how I couldn't just lay around the apartment when we were literally just a few weeks into the semester and there were important lectures to be attended. But I was hardly able to concentrate in any of my classes, and usually got the hell right out of there and went back to Lydia's in case Dean came looking for me. He knew my schedule, and I didn't think it'd be beyond him to try to catch me outside of class to try and talk to me.

It was nearing the end of Wednesday and I lied curled up on the couch, smothered in the blanket, watching but not watching Judge Judy on the TV, when I heard the telephone ring in the kitchen. A few minutes later, Lydia emerged with a strange look on her face.

"Dr. Roberts is on the phone," she said to me, clearly. "He wants to know when you're coming home."

I sighed heavily and pulled my arms into my chest, not looking at her, keeping my eyes fixed on the TV in front of me. "Tell him I don't know."

Though I couldn't see the look she was giving me, I could tell just by how the air shifted right then that she was annoyed. Lydia was one of those people who hated when others ran away or tried to hide from their problems.

"I think _you_ should talk to him." She said after a moment, in her no-nonsense tone of voice.

I closed my eyes tightly for a moment. I hadn't gone into detail with her what our fight had been about, and I didn't think she needed to know the details; quite honestly, I didn't want to recount the details of that fight ever again. But it annoyed me that she didn't know what was going on and yet felt she _had_ to tell _me_ to talk to him.

Still, I resisted the urge to get snappy. "I don't want to talk to him."

"Hanna, you're not going to resolve anything if you don't talk to him-"

I sat up, abruptly, and put out a hand to get her to stop, and it worked. She stared at me, taken aback, with her eyes wide. "_Please_, Lydia, _**don't**_. Just _**don't.**_"

She stood there for a moment, staring at me with her lips pressed together, and I was positive she was going to give me an argument, scowl at me and tell me to stop acting like a child and stop moping. But after awhile she must have gauged that I really wasn't in the mood for it, and she sighed heavily, and left the room without another word. A few moments later, I heard her in the kitchen talking on the phone, though I couldn't hear what she was saying, and I leaned forward and rubbed my face with both hands.

It was so typical she'd take his side. He was the professor, he was the _favourite _professor, so of course he could do no wrong in her eyes, it had to have been all my fault. She hadn't said as much, but I could definitely feel it in the air between us in that apartment those past few days.

I expected her to come back into the living room after getting off the phone with Dean to say something to me, scold me for being so stubborn, _something, _but she didn't. I listened as she wandered back through the hallway, back towards her bedroom, closed the door, and I sighed heavily and curled up back into the walnut couch, turning off the TV, and staring at the blank screen.

/

When I knocked on Dr. Crane's office door the next afternoon, there was a very uncomfortable churning in my stomach and I desperately wanted to go home and go to bed. Though I'd be free after only a half hour with Crane, I would have been just as happy to hit my head and go into a coma. I wasn't in the mood to talk.

Crane answered the door after the first knock; probably sitting at his desk reading up on other disgusting theories thought up by equally disgusting psychoanalysts that he could spew at me to justify how disgusting he thought I was. He met me at the door with his piercing blue gaze and a half-hearted smile on his lips. "Good afternoon, Hanna."

He pivoted into the office to let me step inside, but I stood solid like a rock, feeling like I was going to be sick. Pathetically, I grasped the strap of my backpack and looked up at him. "Dr. Crane, I don't think I can sit in on session today."

The half-hearted smile was gone and replaced with a rather unhappy frown. He squared his body to me, standing in the doorway, and turned his head to the side the way he did, making me feel like he'd caught me in some kind of lie. "Are you all right, Hanna?"

My stomach gave another uneasy jump and I pressed a hand to it absent-mindedly, watching Dr. Crane's eyes follow my movements as though he was worried I was about to pull a knife on him. When his gaze returned to mine, I swallowed and shook my head. "I'm just...really not feeling too well, Dr. Crane. I thought I was gonna be okay, but..."

He was not impressed, not in the _least_, and in a way I couldn't blame him. Lord only knew how many flaky students he had cancel sessions on him because they were hungover or sick or whatever. He sighed heavily. "Are you nauseated? Would you like something?"

I eyed him, warily, wondering why he was so anxious to keep the appointment...but then I guessed he was just trying to be helpful, in some...non-Crane-equse way. I looked down the hallway, looking for spectators that I could spot and watch for a minute so I didn't feel so uncomfortable, but the hallway was completely deserted, as it typically was at that time of day. Class was in.

Finally I sighed heavily, rubbed one of my eyes, and nodded. "Yes, please, that would be great."

Dr. Crane tipped his chin just a little and cleared the doorway for me to step in, and instead of letting my backpack fall to the floor at the foot of the patient chair, as per usual, I stood and loitered in the middle of the room, crossing my arms over my chest, looking out the window at nothing in particular while Crane went to his desk and started rummaging through the drawers.

Looking at the patient chair I suddenly remembered the despicable conversation we'd had last session, and though I didn't want to, I thought about Dean. I missed him, I couldn't deny it. Every single time I woke up on the couch in Lydia's apartment, I just got madder and madder at myself, thinking I should just bite the bullet, admit I was being a bitch, and make up with Dean. I was miserable without him. Several times I was tempted to go to one of his classes and sit at the very back of the lecture hall, where he wouldn't see me, just to listen to him. He was a gorgeous man, but I'd be lying if I told you I hadn't fallen in love with his voice listening to him lecture.

But of course it was difficult not to feel slightly woozy when I remembered _why _we'd had that big blowout in the first place.

I was so lost in my own thoughts that once Crane approached me with a little pink pill and a bottle of water, I was appropriately startled. But I took the medicine from him and swallowed it cleanly with a bit of water, while Crane stood back and watched me with a void expression on his face.

"I take it, perhaps, the topic of our last discussion was not exactly..." he paused, his eyes flickering as he searched for the right word, as I gaped at him. "...comforting."

I could have laughed right in his face. Instead, I wiped my mouth and handed him back the water bottle, rolling my eyes. "Yeah, what gave it away?"

"Well," as he screwed the cap onto the bottle of water. "I did happen to see Dr. Roberts this morning. He looked rather out of sorts."

I suddenly wished I hadn't given him back the water bottle, so I could have flung the water in his face and stormed out. Instead, I just stared at him, and I could tell the expression on my face was just getting uglier and uglier.

"Well he wouldn't know, because I didn't _tell _him," I lied, in a rather sneery voice that I just couldn't restrain at that moment, and pulling the strap of my backpack over my shoulder, I moved past him, huffing. "Thanks for the pill, Dr. Crane, but I can't sit through session, not today. I'll see you next week."

It was incredibly rude, I know, but I didn't give a shit.

"Hanna!" Dr. Crane said sharply, just as my fingers had brushed the doorknob, and I know I just should have stormed out and gone home, _fuck it_, but for whatever reason I paused, and waited to hear what he had to say, clenching my teeth, waiting for him to explain that my unreasonableness was based on an underlying want to be impregnated by my father or some disgusting stupid shit like that.

I turned and looked at him over my shoulder, giving him a glowering look, and watched as he opened one of the drawers in his desk and produced a pumpkin-coloured sweater, and I scowled at it because it was _my _sweater.

Dr. Crane held it out for me to take, staring at me blankly. "You left this here at our last session."

I stared at him suspiciously; I didn't recall wearing a sweater to any one of the sessions, it was still September, and September in Gotham was pretty nice, so far as weather went. But then, as I stared at the sweater, there was no doubt that it was indeed _my _sweater, and I had gotten out of his office pretty damn quick after that last session, so it was just as likely I wore it and forgot about it. I reached forward and took it.

"Thanks," I said, not meaning it. "I don't even remember wearing it."

Dr. Crane shrugged a little, as though it didn't really concern or bother him. Prick. "Well, I'll see you next week. I hope you feel better."

I nodded at him (though I know he didn't mean it) and without another word, pulled the door closed behind me as I went into the hallway.

That was it, I was done. _Done. _No more Crane, fuck it. If they really wanted me in therapy, they could find me a therapist who wasn't a total and complete _asshole __**all the time**_! There had to be other professors who were licensed to take patients in the university, there _had to be! _And even if there wasn't, who said I had to see a therapist at school? If I really needed it, which I _didn't_, they could send me to a better therapist outside of school, someone who didn't know the politics of university, someone who didn't know _Dean _and what the fuck _Dean __**looked like **__enough to spot him looking "out of sorts" in the mother__**fucking hallway!**_

I stopped for a moment and pressed my hand against the wall. I felt sick and dizzy and upset. The question was did I go back to Lydia's and take refuge on the couch, just to wait for her to come home with another onslaught of _do this do that_...

Or did I bite the bullet, go to Dean's, and wait for him to come home?

I sighed heavily, wanting to cry. It was too big a decision. I wanted to go back to Dean's, really, I did...

But I couldn't.

Suddenly with the greatest urge to break down into tears and just collapse in the hallway sobbing, I started up back down the hall, pissed off at Crane, upset with myself, sick to my stomach...and then my nose itched like hell. I rubbed it with my free arm, sniffing. What the hell, had Crane left my sweater on the floor to gather dust or something? Ass**hole. **

Sighing heavily, angry, and getting angrier by the second, I marched around the corner and opened the door to go into the main hallway...

I came to a halt.

The hallway went on...and on...and _on_...until it continued into blackness.

I blinked and stared for a few moments. The hallway was...just...

"Wha..." I breathed, and then I squeezed my eyes closed, thinking my eyes were just playing tricks on me, that when I opened them, the hallway would be there and I could see the exit to the psychology building. I could go home and just make like none of it ever happened...

I opened my eyes, and suddenly my chest felt very tight.

I couldn't see the end of the hall. I couldn't see the exit. I couldn't see the sunlight pouring in through the windows. All I could see were the walls around me, and the blackness at the end of the hallway.

I sucked in a frantic breath and took a step, and then my vision slowly began to change. I stopped, looking around, as my vision suddenly began to _tilt_. I stopped myself and put out my hands, thinking I was going to fall over, trying to keep my balance as I stared in _absolute __**horror **_at the long expanse of hallway that led into blackness.

_What the fuck...what the __**fuck?!**_

I slowly turned myself around. I needed to find some water, a chair to sit on..._something! _This was _not __**normal. **_

But when I turned around, expecting to come face to face with the door, and reaching for the handle - there was only blackness.

"No..." I breathed, heaving a little, getting more and more freaked out with each passing moment. I put out my hand. The door had to be there, it _had _to! I'd just come through it less than a moment ago! But when I put my hand out...nothing. I felt _nothing._

It was an abyss.

A very real and very frightened sound escaped my lips. I couldn't go back because there wasnowhere to go back to...which was _impossible!_

Slowly I turned myself around again, to the continuing hallway. There was no where else to go...

Swallowing tightly, shaking, I started to walk. I watched the walls around me, looked at the bulletin boards, watched the lights overhead as I passed under them. I took low, shuddery breaths, trying not to watch the blackness at the end of the hallway. I knew if I continued walking I'd end up some_where_...

I kept squeezing my eyes closed, trying to correct my vision, but every time I opened them the hallway was tilted, and though I tried to keep my steps level and steady, I found myself stumbling once or twice.

I wanted to call out for help...but _who _was there to call out to?

And then, suddenly...

Seagulls.

I could hear seagulls.

I stopped, abruptly, and looked around, looked above me. But I was only met with the ceiling and the overhead lights. But of course that was...well, it was impossible! I was hearing seagulls, I knew what seagulls sounded like, there was no way I could have mistaken it-

And then...seawater. I could smell seawater. It flooded my nostrils, that oh so familiar smell of the salt air...

The seagulls, the smell of seawater...

And then...waves. Waves lapping up against the shore.

I stopped myself, stopped moving, stopped everything. I stood for a moment, trying to collect my thoughts, trying to _stay calm_...but I was breathing so quickly and my heart was pounding and I was fucking scared...more scared than I ever remembered being -

And then...and then...

"_**Johanna**__!" _

Oh _god_ -

A sob left my throat.

_Mom?_

I heard her. I _heard _her, I'd know the sound of her voice anywhere! She was there, she was _there __**somewhere! **_I spun around but only came face to face with the blackness...though it sounded like she had been right behind me. Yet she wasn't.

Turning around once more, my eyes widened.

The hallway had changed. I wasn't walking on tile anymore...I was walking on planks. Bright orange life preservers were flung this way and that. Looking down as I walked I could see a fishing net - honest to god, a fucking _fishing net_! Why would there be -

"_**Johanna, put your lifejacket on. I'm not gonna tell you again.**__"_

"_**Okay, okay...**__"_

Oh my _god_...

"_**Maybe we should leave her with Marsha. She might not like it out there on the water.**__"_

"_**Nah, she'll love it, Frank, come on.**__"_

Suddenly I collapsed to my knees, feeling the roughness of the planks under my jeans, putting out my hands and touching the wood. Jesus, it was _real. _It was all happening.

I shook my head, tears streaming down my cheeks. No..._no_...this was not happening...this was _not __**happening...**_

I could smell the salt in my nostrils. I could hear the water sloshing underneath me. I could hear the seagulls, the distant horns of other boats. I could hear my _parents..._

"_**Jo, honey, come away from the edge, it's too dangerous-"**_

"_**We should probably head back in-**_"

"_**Johanna, mummy said come here-**__"_

I shook my head, sobbing, the tears stinging my eyes, burning my cheeks. I covered my ears with my hands. No...no, it wasn't happening...it wasn't happening. It was just a dream...just a dream...

And then I could hear the thunder...the thunder crashing overtop of me. I could hear the violence of the waves. I could hear the frantic terror in my parents' voice, despite how they were trying to stay strong.

"_**Elaine-**__" _

"_**Johanna, come here, **__now__**!**__" _

"_**ELAINE!**__"_

And then it was _quiet. _

But then it wasn't so quiet.

I could hear the water. When I uncovered my ears and slowly looked up, up into the expanse of the hallway...

I could hear the water. And then I _saw _the water.

My eyes widened, and I opened my mouth to scream but there was no time. The water appeared from out of nowhere, a great big gush out of the blackness. With a force unlike anything I'd ever seen before, the water came crashing towards me, fast, crushing...

I fell back onto my ass and tried to escape, frantically tried to flee, but there was no point. The water was coming and there was nothing I could do. I was going to get swept away.

I let out a scream as I felt the heaviness of the water on top of me, and then it swept against me like a thousand ice cold knives stabbing me all at once. My throat choked up. I couldn't breathe. I couldn't move. I was trapped. The water had me, surrounded me..._crushed _me.

And then...and then -

...

**/**


	9. Chapter 9

**A/N: **Very special thanks to **linalove, walawalabadkoala, KorroksApostle, Lady Liesel, Clavis Salmonis, ZombieOnTheMoon, slytherin-until-i-die, Rogue133, Artistic Punk, pourquoibella, Noniona, drivenunder, **and **Musicaddict1 **for your reviews. :D

**Scythe**

**Chapter Nine**

**/**

When I opened my eyes, all I could see was blurry light. I gasped, opening my mouth, trying to get some air, but I couldn't breathe.

I could see shadows overhead, blurred, and no matter how much I blinked my eyes I couldn't get a clearer vision. I gasped desperately, squinting under the light. I was soaked, I could feel the water on me, weighing down my clothes, my hair, making me feel hot and gross and anxious, the salt in the water drying up all the moisture in my skin. I rose my hands up, trying to grasp something, but I couldn't see anything but the shadows against the light.

"_Hanna!"_

I gasped loudly. _Dean_. I could _**hear**__ Dean! _

I frantically tried to touch him, anyone! But I couldn't see _anything_.

I coughed, squeezing my eyes and opening them, but my vision was still blurred. I frantically tried calling for him, but my voice got caught in my throat. All I could do was gasp out weak syllables. _Dee...Deaa-_

"_Mr. Roberts, please, you have to stand back-"_

"_She's calling my name, can't you hear her? She needs me!" _

Dean...DEAN! I lashed out with my arms, trying to grab onto him, trying to find him. My eyes stung so badly I could barely keep them open. DEAN!

"_Jesus, let me hold her, will ya?" _

"_Mr. Roberts, you need to stand back and let us do our job here!"_

"_She's calling for me, c'mon, let me hold her!"_

I could feel hot tears streaming down my face. I could hear him, I could hear his deep voice booming all around me, but I couldn't see him! I could feel hands on my arms trying to press them down and I thrashed and kicked my legs and gasped for air and called for Dean.

DEAN!

"_I'm here, Han, I'm here!" _

"_Nurse, hand me that sedative-"_

"_What, you're gonna drug her?"_

"_Mr. Roberts, she's hysterical, we need to calm her down-"_

"_Of __**course **__she's hysterical! You're holding her down! She wants me, let me hold her!"_

I sobbed harder and harder, shaking my head from side to side. I felt hands pressing down on my arms, elbows pressing on my legs.

"_Johanna, can you hear me?" _the voice was foreign. _"I'm going to give you a mild sedative, it'll help you sleep."_

**Fuck that**. DEAN!

"_Will you hold her still?!" _

"_I'm TRYING!" _

DEAN!

And then, for some reason, my legs and arms just got tired, suddenly - and though there was an urgency to get up and find Dean and figure out what the hell was going on...suddenly my eyelids were so heavy that I could barely keep them open under the blurry light.

The voices started to fade away. I couldn't hear Dean anymore. The more I tried to listen for his voice, the more I heard of the stranger voices, but then after awhile I couldn't hear them either.

And then everything went black.

/

I woke up to the sound of a heart monitor beeping in my ear. I opened my eyes slowly and took in the sight of the room. White, sterile, cold...typical hospital room. I squeezed my eyes closed and opened them once again, my eyes slowly adjusting, my sight getting sharper. I could see the panels in the ceiling above me, and the morning light coming in from the window.

Slowly I wiggled my fingers, and then my toes. The feeling was starting to come back in my limbs, but they were still heavy as fuck, as though I'd been lying in that hospital bed for years. I sought a button for the nurse with my fingers but was only met with the cheap, papery-thin hospital linen. I knew I was alone and I didn't want to be; I frantically sought out the button.

The heart monitor was distant in my ear; I rose my head and saw the hospital chair pulled up to the bed, but it was empty. Looking to my side I saw the bedside table was littered with flowers of all shapes, sizes, colours and smells. But all I could smell was hospital smell. Hospital smell and...

...and seawater.

I sucked in a breath or two, trying to keep myself calm. I closed my eyes and let my head fall back on the pillow, my fingers grasping frantically for the button for the nurse. I swallowed tightly, telling myself to stay calm, but I wanted to cry.

"Nurse..." I whispered, testing my voice. It was dry and croaky and my throat was killing me. My fingers sought furiously until they brushed the cold hard plastic of the remote. Feeling around with my thumb, I brushed what felt like a button and pressed it.

"Nurse!" I called out, and I could hear the tears in my voice. I squeezed my eyes closed. I was scared to open them.

The heart monitor beeped over me, and then I heard the nurse's voice over the intercom.

_**I'm sorry, the number you are trying to reach is unavailable at this time. Please check your directory, and try again.**_

I froze. It'd been awhile since I was in a hospital, but I was pretty sure when you called the nurses, _that _wasn't supposed to be what came through. The remote slipped out of my fingers, and I opened my eyes, blinking frantically, trying to breathe, unable to get a full breath of air. The tears pinched my eyes. I had to get up. I had to get help.

My throat burned from saltwater, and I looked to my bedside table and saw a plastic cup filled with ice...ice water. I pulled myself up into the best sitting position I could muster, and reached for the cup urgently-

But as I brushed it with my fingertips, the smell of seawater flooded my nostrils once more. I eyed the water in the cup...it wasn't ice water. It wasn't ice water _at all_. It was just more _seawater!_

Breathing heavily, I tried to pull myself up so I could plant my feet on the floor, but it was becoming increasingly more difficult to move. My limbs felt like they were filled with sand, and it seemed the more I tried to move them, the heavier they got. Tears came out of frustration and though I desperately tried hard _not _to cry, it didn't seem like an option anymore. I sat there in the hospital bed, miserably, and pressed my hands to my face.

And my tears...my tears _tasted _like seawater! It was in my skin and my clothes and my hair and my mouth and I couldn't, _couldn't_ get it away from me!

I tried to rip the hospital gown off my body, but my hands felt cracked and dry beyond repair. It made me cry even harder. I pushed the sheets off my bare legs because they felt dry and rough and horrible.

My legs...my legs were bloated and so white they were almost blue in colour. I stared at them, trying to steady my breathing, but the more I stared at them the faster I started to hyperventilate. It couldn't be real, it _couldn't _be, it was just some dream! Some hospital drug-induced dream, it _had _to be!

Shaking, I reached out and pressed my finger against the flesh of my thigh. It was spongy and disgusting and a frightened sob burst from my throat, and then I beheld my arm...both arms...they too were bloated, my fingers were huge and chubby, purple in the fingernails, white and disgusting and...

Tears poured down my cheeks, more seawater, and I was powerless to stop it. I stared at my hands, at my arms, and pressed them into my body, hid them behind my back, tried to make them disappear, but then I looked down at my legs and they were just...just...

I screamed then, in agony. I doubled over, wanting to puke, but instead I just screamed. There was nothing else I could do. My face was hot and as I pressed my hands to my face to stop the tears from flowing, my fingers felt dead and cold and spongy and smelled of seaweed and it was so _fucking __**disgusting **_that I wound my fingers in my hair and pulled, screaming.

And then - suddenly, without warning at all, I felt hands on me.

I reacted, shrieking, trying to push them away, trying to get them off me.

"Hanna, Hanna, it's okay, it's _me!" _

I shook my head, shrieking, trying to move my legs but suddenly I realized why they wouldn't move; they were just big, dead bloated things, and it just made me cry harder and scream louder.

"_Han, it's me! It's __**Dean**__."_

_..._

_...Dean._

I tried to ease my breathing, closed my eyes tightly, concentrated. I couldn't tell if he was really there or if I was just hearing him...I struggled to stop the tears, pressed my lips together to keep from sobbing. I stopped my arms and hands from moving, I just listened intently. Had I imagined it?

I felt his hands on me again, gently touching my shoulder and my arm..._gently_.

"...Han?"

He was standing next to me, his voice was overtop of me...

I opened my eyes, stinging from tears, and was met with a peculiar sight. My legs, stretched out in front of me...they were thin again, thin and normal-looking. I breathed heavily, looking at them, pressing my fingertips into my thighs and then marveling at my hands, my soft hands and my clean fingernails. I scowled, staring at them, shaking my head. _What the hell_?

I was still marveling at my hands when I could feel a presence standing over me, a shadow falling down over me, blocking out the artificial light. Though my eyes stung like hell, I looked up over my shoulder and came face to face with Dean.

He stared down at me as though he couldn't quite believe what he was seeing, and I in turn blinked at him for moments, not quite sure who he was at one moment, and then in the next, so overwhelmed that I could barely form a coherent thought.

"Dean..." I whispered, and lifted my arms to him. Had I the strength, I'm positive I would have thrown myself right at him. "_Dean!" _

In the next few seconds I was enveloped in his arms and pressed against him so hard I couldn't breathe. But it didn't matter. I grasped his arms with my hands, making sure he was there, making sure he was real. But I could smell him and I could feel him and I knew it was him, it was really, truly _him. _

I started to sob once more, and Dean let me, just holding me. The smell of him was beginning to overcloud the smell of the seawater, and suddenly I was so happy I could have died.

_/_

"Well, the first thing we want to do after an...episode of this magnitude, is conduct some tests in order to rule out some major problems."

"What kind of problems?" Dean asked. I could hear how he was trying to sound calm and strong, just like his usual self, but there was a hint of shakiness that the doctor wouldn't pick up on, but I heard it straight away. I stared up at the two of them as they stood by my bed, the doctor with the clipboard in his hands, Dean standing next to him looking as though he hadn't slept in a month. It broke my heart to see him like that.

"Well," the doctor began carefully. "What I'd like to get out of the way first is an MRI so we can rule out some conditions such as schizophrenia."

I squeezed my eyes shut and shook my head a little. Schizophrenia, _really_? I couldn't be schizophrenic...

Dean sighed heavily and rubbed his face. "And after that?"

"We'll do some cognitive tests, test her mental abilities and capacities. Does your therapist have you on any prescription medication, Johanna?"

I shook my head dismally.

"Should we..." Dean faded out, obviously not wanting to say what he was about to. "Should we consult with him on this? I mean, maybe he'll know something-"

"We've already put in the request for Dr. Crane's input," the doctor said reassuringly, and I wanted to groan right out loud, but I was too upset to. "Hopefully anything he's observed will help us in our diagnosis."

"Right..." Dean rubbed his chin.

A strange silence settled in the hospital room. I curled my nose; the smell of the place was really getting to me, it was making me sick. Sure, it was better than the sickening smell of seawater, but not by much. I looked down at my hands cradled in my lap, at the IV stuck in my hand, and I wanted to cry. Everything my skin touched felt papery and crackly and horrible.

After a moment, I heard the doctor speak to Dean. "Perhaps I should leave you two alone for a minute, just to talk things over."

Looking up I observed as Dean nodded and then shook the doctor's hand. Obviously nothing more needed to be said. The doctor read our minds, it seemed. Looking at me and giving me a very brief smile, the doctor hooked my clipboard at the base of my bed and turned to leave the room, closing the door behind him.

Dean sighed heavily and when I looked up at him, he was rubbing his eyes but looked down at me and smiled; he couldn't hide it from me, I knew he was exhausted and scared shitless. "Hear that? We'll get everything figured out."

I stared up at him for a single moment before I rose my arms, silently beckoning him closer. He obliged instantly, rounding the bed to sit next to me, enveloping me in his great big arms and kissing my forehead. I rested my head against his chest and locked my arms around him. I didn't want him to leave me, not there in that hospital room, not ever again.

"It's alright, Hanna," he whispered, squeezing me. "They'll just do some routine tests...and y'know the nurse says your Dad and stepmom should be here anytime."

I closed my eyes and let out an aggravated sigh, but I didn't say anything.

"I know you don't want them here," Dean said in a guarded manner. "But y'know, he _is _your father, he was worried sick when they called him. Besides, now I'll finally get to meet the guy."

My stomach twisted uncomfortably and I buried my face in his chest, letting out an unhappy sound.

"Hey," Dean whispered to me. "It'll be okay."

"No it won't," I said as he rested his chin against the top of my head. "I'm petrified."

"Petrified of what?" Dean asked as he rubbed my back and buried his nose in my hair.

"Of what Dad'll say..." I trailed out, sighing heavily. "When I tell him I'm in love with you."

Dean stopped rubbing my back; in fact, it seemed as though his heart had stopped altogether. The hospital room went silent once more.

/

When I next woke up, it felt as though I'd been asleep for years and yet I was so tired I could barely keep my eyes open. The white of the room was blinding for a moment, but in front of me sat a dark shape, which I assumed to be Dean.

My eyes took a moment to adjust, and I was face to face with Dr. Crane.

He tipped his chin, his blue eyes indifferent. He was holding a bouquet wrapped in cheap white paper. "Good morning."

I wanted to push myself up into a sitting position, but I simply did not have the energy nor the initiative for it. Weakly, I scanned the room, as far as I could see. "...Where's Dean?"

"Gone for coffee with your father and stepmother," he said simply, unfolding his legs and reaching over to put the wrapped bouquet on the bedside table, before settling back down again. It pissed me off; he wanted me to acknowledge the fact that he'd come to see me in the hospital and he'd even brought flowers, but he wouldn't even unwrap them or put them in water; I wanted to sneer and tell him to get out but I didn't have the energy.

Dr. Crane folded his fingers together, regarding me. "He's been here for two days, y'know. Told the nurses he was your fiancee."

The way he said it made it sound like we were runaway criminals, Bonnie and Clyde, our crimes about to become doubly offensive because we'd decided to get married.

I closed my eyes and rolled onto my back, so I didn't have to face him, and I ran a hand over my face. "What do you want?"

The air between us quieted; I could almost feel his lips curling into a little frown. "I came to see how you were feeling. You were out for two days, Dr. Roberts said."

I sighed heavily and shook my head. I couldn't believe it, not even when Dean told me himself. There was no way I'd been out for two days after what had happened in the hallway, no _way_, and yet somehow I had been.

Dr. Crane waited as though he expected me to say something, but when he saw that I had no intention of saying anything in reply, he continued in a small, condescending voice. "I had a chance to meet your father."

I curled my nose. Joy, the last person in the world I wanted to become more involved with me and the people in my life just had to go ahead, do the admirable thing, and introduce himself as my therapist to my father. Suddenly I was overcome with an urge to call the nurse and tell her that Crane threatened to kill me.

"Dr. Crane?" I murmured, throwing my forearm over my eyes to block the sun.

"Yes, Hanna?" he replied, his voice somewhat lifted.

I sighed. "Can you find Dean for me...and tell him to come back here and barricade my door?"

The tension in the room was so heavy that I heard his sharp sigh through his nostrils like it was steam out of a train engine. "Hanna-"

"If you can't do that," I interrupted him, sharply, not in the mood for his bullshit. "Then just go away, please; I don't feel up to visitors right now."

Something told me that if I were a child Crane was trying to parent, he would have picked me up, thrown me over his knee and spanked me until I started screaming. At that moment, I wouldn't have blamed him. When had I become so insolent?

I heard a creak in the hospital chair he was sitting in. He was leaning close to me, I could feel it.

"Hanna," he said somewhat quietly. "I want you to promise me you'll continue our sessions. I feel we're making progress."

The thought of more sessions with him made me exasperated and exhausted, and I felt like going to sleep for another couple of days.

"Yeah, whatever," I spat at him. "Just go."

There was a long, intolerable silence that settled nicely and heavily in the air. In my mind I begged for Dean to come back and save me from this blue-eyed melancholic. But only after a moment or so, I heard Dr. Crane stand up from the chair, fidget with his suit, and clear his throat just slightly.

"Feel better soon." He said dryly, and then he left.

/

"Oh wow," Dean said, delightfully surprised, when he came back with his coffee, handling the cheap bouquet Crane brought me. Standing next to the bed, he was a gigantic mountain man, and he had a big stupid grin on his face. "Who brought you the rhododendrons?"

They were red, too. Prick.

/

Dad and I sat outside in the garden outside the hospital cafeteria. The weather was not the best, so we were alone, me in my hospital gown and housecoat, with my hair unwashed and my face a mess, sipping ice cold ginger ale, and Dad, leaning forward in his seat, rubbing his hands together, looking like he was trying to think of the best way to break the news to me that I was dying or some shit like that. I hadn't seen him since the wedding; he'd gained some weight but his skin was tan from the Hawaiian sun, and his hair was really starting to go salt n'pepper in the sideburns. He still had those bushy eyebrows that drove me crazy; I had figured Diana would have remedied those immediately, but my guess was they had more important things to consider.

"I had a chance to speak with your therapist," he said, carefully.

I groaned and rubbed my face with my free hand. "...And what knowledge did you acquire from _that _goldmine?"

Dad frowned, the kind of frown that made you think he was pissed at you, but actually he was just concerned about something. "He has some very interesting theories about your behaviour and I have to agree with them."

I looked up at him, aghast, and scoffed right out loud. "Whatever, Dad, what do you know about psychological theory?"

"It explains a lot of your behaviour these days," Dad retorted. "He thinks it was probably caused by an..." he hesitated, eying me carefully. "...inconsistency in parenting."

I stared; something about that smelled like shit. "_Inconsistency _was the word he used?"

"It explains this...affair you're having with the professor."

"Who you _like,_" I pointed out, remembering how Dean had literally been in giggles after meeting Dad for the first time_. "_He said you guys got along great!"

Dad shook his head, looking like he was about to cry, and put out his hands as if he were trying to appeal to my good nature. "I was trying my best not to punch the guy out, Johanna. Your therapist doesn't approve of the relationship and neither do I."

I stared at him in disbelief, shaking my head a little. What the _fuck, _so suddenly Crane was just flat out voicing his disapproval of my relationship with Dean? Fine job he did of saying anything about it, forget the fact I was in-fucking-love with the guy. "Gee, you and him really seem to be delegating."

Dad scowled tightly. "Will you _stop_ with the attitude? _Please_?"

I stared at him, suspiciously, and then looked down at my bare feet, at the chipped red nail polish on my toenails, and listened to Dad as he took in a deep breath and let it out in a heavy sigh.

"Jesus," he breathed. "This is all I need, y'know? Back from the honeymoon, I don't hear from you after trying to get ahold of you, first thing I hear is from some doctor in a hospital. Come down here, you're in therapy, you're actually having full blown hallucinations _and _you're sleeping with your professor."

I looked up and longed to tell him how the therapy wasn't my idea, but I didn't; sleeping with my professor _was _my idea, after all.

I watched Dad rub his face with both hands and run his fingers through his hair, shaking his head, not looking at me at all. "I can't help but feel like a failure."

I stared at him, wondering if that was really how he felt. I had the utmost urge to tell him that, before he had been led astray by his goddamned secretary, he and I had had a pretty great father-daughter relationship; I wouldn't have called him a failure, not in a million years, especially not after Mom died and he took on the task of raising me all by himself.

I shook my head at him; I couldn't believe what I was hearing. "...Tell me how you really feel, Dad."

"Well it's just that..." Dad trailed off, sounding somewhat ashamed of what he had just said, and I kinda hoped he did. "Maybe you should take a semester off, get some things...figured out."

I sipped my ginger ale to avoid screaming at him. What was there to figure out? Yeah, sure, maybe I was in therapy and yeah maybe I was having weird as fuck hallucinations that didn't have anything to do with anything, but aside from all that bullshit, I was doing exceptionally well in school _and _making a relationship work! What the hell was there to be figured out that it warranted taking time off school?

I didn't have a chance to ask him before we were interrupted.

"Knock knock!" It was Diana, hanging out of the cafeteria door. I looked over at her, taking in her bleached hair, her skin-tight clothes, the diamond on her finger the size of a fucking Skittle. I couldn't help but glower as she stepped out into the garden, wobbling a little on her skyscraper high heels as they sank into the grass

"I'm not intruding, am I?" Diana asked in her overdone, practiced-the-shit-out-of Marilyn Monroe voice, looking between the two of us and smiling like a fool before turning to my Dad and tapping her watch. "Frankie, I don't mean to rush you, but if we don't get to LaRoule's by 1:30pm, they'll give our table to someone else."

Dad looked and her and nodded. "Just a second, Di."

"K," she breathed, grinning, and wiggled her fingers at me on her way back to the cafeteria. Whether she blatantly ignored my sneer or didn't see it, I don't know. I watched her trot her way through the cafeteria, catching the eyes of male nurses and other hospital patrons as she went.

I shook my head after her. God, I hated her.

I turned back to Dad; he'd obviously been watching her too, since he had a small smile on his face, the smile that said _yeah_, _**I'm**__ married to that lovely lady, _and I just wanted to smack it right off.

"...Inconsistency in parenting, huh?" I asked, a little uglier than I probably should have.

Dad sighed, rubbed his face and ran his hands through his graying hair. "Just promise me one thing, will you?"

I kept my eyes down on my toes, taking a shaky sip of ginger ale. If he asked me to promise him to break it off with Dean, I was going to scream at him. I was going to _scream _at him.

"Just..." Dad began, and trailed out. "Promise me you'll stay with the therapy. The guy seems to have a handle on your...condition."

I looked up at him. Honestly, _honestly_, there were two men in my life who weren't my father, one treated me like I was a goddess, the other treated me with contempt, and _that _was the one Dad had faith in?!

"I don't _have _a condition, Dad!" I snapped, inadvertently squeezing the plastic cup in my hand out of frustration.

"Just stay with it," Dad said insistently, frowning. "It seems to be what you need."

I stared at him, scowling hard, and a real unpleasantness and uneasiness settled between the two of us. I was done talking, there was nothing more for me to say, and Dad obviously remembered that his trophy wife was waiting on him to go to some four star restaurant for lunch while his only child was all cooped up in the hospital, since after a moment he got up, dusted his hands off on his pants, and nervously shifted his weight from one leg to the other. Still, I wouldn't look at him.

"Well, I guess we'll see you on Wednesday night, if not before," Dad said, rather unhappily. "Your uh...professor invited us over for dinner."

I squeezed my eyes closed and fought the urge to scream at the top of my lungs. I curled my free hand into a fist and listened to Dad's shuffling footsteps on the grass before he opened the door and was gone.

/

"So," Dr. Crane began, as he fidgeted in his chair and flared his nostrils. Obviously the hospital smell was getting to him too. Good. "Is there anything I can get for you? Anything I can have the nurses bring in?"

I sipped my orange juice, hoping to make the most annoying sound with the straw. "Yeah, uh, could you ask the nurses to call Dean and get him to come back dressed up as Poseidon?"

The look on Dr. Crane's face said _have you been drugged? _He closed his eyes for a moment and shook his head. "Hanna-"

"Actually, no, make it Odysseus, tell them to dress up as Odysseus! He'll think it's hilarious, we have a joke about it!"

"Have they put you on medication without informing me?" Dr. Crane asked, one finely shaped eyebrow raising over a troubled set of blue eyes.

"Not yet," I said, setting my orange juice down on my tray. "But obviously Dean and I haven't had sex in almost five days, I'm going nuts."

Dr. Crane sat there, not moving, and he had this look on his face that told me we weren't going to say or do anything until I shut myself up and stopped acting like a child. I had figured hey, since he insisted on keeping time with our therapy and wanted to have session while I was still in the hospital, during what was supposed to be my resting time, I figured a little well-deserved fun was in order. But I knew I was being obnoxious, so I sighed, and settled myself back against the pillows, shrugging my shoulders. "Sorry."

He let out a sigh through his nostrils. "Hanna,"

"Yeah?"

"Why didn't you tell me that your mother drowned?"

**/**


	10. Chapter 10

**A/N: **Thank you **ElektraMackenzie, ZenyZootSuit, ForeverACharmedOne, Artistic Punk, pourquoibella, Noniona, AtheneLN, don'tblameme33, takara410, KorroksApostle, linalove, Lea, corbsxx, Ravenclaw992, SammiRichGurl, drivenunder, Camaro Love, Lady Liesel, GooseberryIcecream, **and **Sharpthought** for your reviews. I know I told you guys that I'd have the next chapter published earlier, but life got in the way, as it sometimes does. Hope this chapter makes up for it. Enjoy!

**Scythe**

**Chapter Ten**

**/**

For a few moments we simply stared at each other, Crane with an expectant look on his face, waiting for an answer to his question, and I blinked at him stupidly, wondering if I really heard what I thought I'd just heard.

"...What?"

Dr. Crane shifted in his seat, never breaking his gaze. "Your mother, Hanna. Why didn't you tell me she drowned?"

I gaped at him, desperately trying not to lose my temper and start mouthing off at him about things that were none of his business to begin with. At the same time, though, I couldn't deny how the question had caught me completely off guard. I opened my mouth to respond, watched his eyebrows perk, expecting an answer, and then I closed my mouth, looking down at my hands in my lap, feeling weirdly embarrassed and I didn't know why. "Who told you that?"

Surprisingly, Crane didn't seem too perturbed about my typical skirting-around-the-question that I was bad for (I admit); he was probably taking his time, waiting patiently, because I was, after all, in the hospital. I couldn't just get up and storm out if I got mad at him. "Your father told me."

"When?"

Crane crossed his legs elegantly. "Your doctor had me sit in with your father and stepmother after the...episode. Your father told us what happened."

I looked away from him, down at my hands in my lap, at the IV sticking out of the back of my hand. I was at a loss for words. "...Fuck."

Crane was studying me very intently, and though I wasn't looking at him, I could sense a sort of soft-disappointment in his air, like he was upset I felt I couldn't trust him with this deep dark secret part of my life that I always tried not to think about. "This is a major key-point in our therapy, Hanna. Why didn't you tell me?"

He wasn't pissed off, not from what I could tell; more so just genuinely curious about why I'd failed to mention probably the most horrific thing I had ever endured that resulted in the unnatural loss of my mother. Then again, it hadn't really come up in our discussions, and I was never in any hurry to relive the memory of that day. But now, in retrospect, I saw why it was meaningful...to this recent hallucination, if nothing else.

I sighed and shrugged. I had no excuse. "I dunno, I guess...I guess I was too scared to hear what you'd say."

Crane made a thoughtful sound in his throat. "It correlates directly to what you've been experiencing. The dream of drowning, this hallucination-"

"-Yeah, but," I interrupted, looking at him. "Why is it happening now, Dr. Crane?"

His blue eyes flashed with surprise, probably from hearing me formally address him. Surprised me too, in fact, but I shook my head; it wasn't worth dwelling on. "I mean, my mother drowned a long time ago, I've made peace with it, why is it resurfacing now?"

Crane gave me a tentative little smile. "Well, obviously you haven't made peace with it enough."

I paused and thought about it, and sipped my orange juice absent-mindedly. Had I made peace with it? Could you make peace with something so violent?

After a moment of gauging my silence, Crane shifted in his seat, leaning towards me. "Do you remember what happened that day?"

I stared at him, suspiciously. There was something very gentle and unobtrusive about his manner, maybe because I was in the hospital. It was odd, but refreshing. It had never crossed my mind that Crane was capable of empathy.

I sighed and shrugged. "I try not to, y'know."

"Can you tell me about it?"

I took in a shaky breath and sat up against the pillows. Five days in, and the hospital bed was becoming increasingly uncomfortable. "Umm...it was Labor Day weekend, and I was seven-years-old, and...my aunt Marsha was renting a house on the beach and had a big party, so I guess my folks thought it'd be a cool idea to take me out on a boat for my first sailing."

It was so cold that day, too. I remembered Dad bitching about it to Mom in the car: _Fine day for a beach party, looks like it's about to rain. -Shut __**up**__, Frank. She doesn't control the weather!_

It made me smile just a little. "We went out, the three of us, and a storm blew in, quite suddenly. And my Dad was experienced with boats but for whatever reason he really started freaking out, and he and Mom got yelling at each other..."

I remembered I was scared because they were scared, listening to the thunder and the waves and my parents shouting, and I was standing too close to the side, looking down over the side, trying to find the dock so I could get the hell off.

"I was standing by the edge and Mom tried to grab me, and the water tossed the boat and we both went over. Mom hit her head and got knocked out and I..."

The water was freezing, so fucking freezing, and the amount I swallowed, ugh, made me feel sick for days.

"I was in the water long enough that I've never been back," I admitted.

Crane nodded as though he understood completely. "How'd you get back onto the boat?"

"My Dad dove in, grabbed me, brought me back to the boat..." I sighed and rubbed my face. "By then Mom was in the water for...I don't even know how long. But we couldn't see her for the longest time, and when we did, Dad dove out to get her...he was gone for a long time, trying to reach her."

I remembered how long I waited, alone, in that boat, looking for Dad over the crashing waves. For a long time, I thought I had lost them both.

"Hanna," Crane broached, softly. "You feel this hallucination was a reenactment of that day?"

I nodded, solemnly. It sure was.

"So that's why you hate swimming," Crane concluded.

"Not hate," I said, distantly. "Just...afraid to."

"Of course," Crane concurred.

At that moment, the door opened, and we both watched as Dean stuck his head inside and looked between us. I smiled widely at him; he'd gone the night before because he had class that day, but he promised he'd be right back after. "Hey, not interrupting, am I?"

I wanted to beckon him inside, Crane be damned, but the good doctor was being fairly tolerable so I decided I should be too. I looked to Crane for permission, and he looked at me with a wavering smile and uncrossed his legs, looking to Dean. "We were just finishing up."

Dean smiled and came lumbering in. He was wearing his grey jeans and black sweater; he seriously looked about a thousand times better since he'd gone home to shower. He extended his hand to Dr. Crane, who actually stood up to receive him. It was a moment of real surreality for me, my professor boyfriend and my professor therapist, shaking hands like they were respected colleagues.

"Thanks for looking after her for a bit, doc," Dean said, grinning. "Even bedridden, I know she's a pain in the ass."

I grinned, and watched as Crane smiled politely. "Not at all, I myself find keeping routine is key for any speedy recovery."

"And how!" Dean agreed, and I fought the urge to laugh right out loud. He was such a fucking goofy schmuck, god, I loved him.

"Well," Crane turned to me, seemingly having had enough of Dean (which made me smile even more) and tipped his chin. "Have a good rest, and I'll see you next week."

I nodded at him and smiled. "See you next week."

Eloquently as ever, Dr. Crane bid Dean good day, picked up his briefcase, and left without another word. I watched him go, wondering why he'd been so different this time around. It hadn't been a real session, we'd only been twenty minutes in, but I had appreciated it nonetheless. I hadn't talked to anyone about the day Mom died in a very long time, and I'll admit it did feel better to talk to someone about it. Made me think maybe I wasn't as crazy as I thought I was.

Dean took his seat next to me, pulling the chair right up to the bed so he could lean over and kiss me.

"See, he shook my hand and everything. The guy's not so bad." He said.

I shrugged. I didn't want to disagree, I was too happy to see him. "Yeah, not so bad."

**/**

They did an MRI, which came up with nothing abnormal or suspicious-looking. They did a cat-scan, which also came up negative. Throughout my weeklong stay at the hospital, my doctor started to look more and more puzzled, not exactly voicing his concerns despite the fact he was obviously very perplexed by the results he _wasn't _seeing. It damn near gave me a heart attack, the whole process; every time I did a test and went in to the doctor's office to discuss the results, I was positive they'd found something horrible to account for the hallucination, like a brain tumor, or some horrible disease. But the fact that they couldn't find anything didn't provide much relief, either. Eventually he had me do a bunch of elementary little tests, like arranging coloured blocks and putting puzzle pieces together, things I haven't done since kindergarten, and though it was kinda fun to take a break from the textbooks and the lectures and the long-ass articles that were barely readable, I couldn't help how weird I felt about everything.

When I'd first come out of it, they'd talked about schizophrenia. But now, they didn't even know what test they could throw at me next to rule out what, and it was obviously frustrating them. By the time they were ready to send me home, my doctor had decided it must have been just a really rare and intense case of extreme stress.

"Without going into details," he told me the morning I was being discharged from the hospital. "Dr. Crane informed us that you've been exhibiting some...very intense periods of stress. Would you agree with that, Johanna?"

I couldn't disagree. Everything, from my father's wedding to the new stepmother to the therapy with Crane to the fight with Dean and the clashing with Lydia was all in all fairly stressful. I told him he was probably on to something.

They sent me home with an order that I get some real rest and relaxation, 10 days of nothing but, forget that I was barely five weeks into fall semester, but my doctor had assured me that the school was aware of my "sudden illness" and that if they had any questions regarding the manner, they could trust in the word of Dr. Crane, who was obviously overseeing my therapy and wellness. By the time I left the hospital, I felt so weird and uninspired and my head was so full of bullshit that when Dean brought me home, I collapsed on the couch with the urge to go into a deep Snow White slumber until I died.

Lydia called at one point and very sheepishly apologized for not visiting but asked if I got the flowers she'd sent over with Dr. Roberts; I wasn't mad at her, I didn't have the energy; frankly I didn't think a visit from her in the hospital would have been much comfort anyway, but I didn't tell her so, and updated her on the whole situation. She told me how she'd gone to see Dr. Roberts in his office and how awful he looked, unshaven, looking like he hadn't slept in years, but happy to tell her that I was okay and the doctors were gonna get everything checked out. I told her about my mandatory days of rest and suggested we go for lunch one afternoon and she delightfully agreed, which made me feel better, especially considering how mean I had been to her when I holed myself up in her apartment after the fight.

Dad called the afternoon of my first day home to tell me he'd met with the doctor and been updated on my situation, and that maybe I should really reconsider taking the semester off and resuming everything in the winter. And oh, what could they bring to dinner on Wednesday?

It killed me that I didn't know what the fuck was going on.

/

I sucked in a deep breath as I let my head collapse back against Dean's shoulder, tilting to the side as he began to nibble along my jawbone, up until he cradled my earlobe with his tongue. I shivered, curling my fingers into his arm and bit down on my lower lip as I felt his fingers slither down along the inside of my thigh, one fingertip brushing harshly against my clit. I arched against him, his free hand pressed against my stomach, holding me against him, while he delicately nibbled my earlobe between his teeth.

I whimpered as he rubbed me, gently, and his sexy little chuckle in my ear made my eyes flutter closed. I kneaded my fingers into his arm, in sync with his fingers as they rubbed me, and my lower lip was suddenly so sore from biting it that I started to suck on it, to ease the ache. When Dean released my earlobe, I turned towards him and met his lips eagerly, taking his tongue into my mouth and brushing against it with my own, moaning into him. To think I'd gone a week without his taste, I could have sucked on his tongue for days as if it were a candy.

As Dean pulled his fingers away, I whimpered pathetically for the loss of his touch, but then he gripped my hips and hoisted me up into his lap. I started as I felt his boxer-clad erection press against me and I squirmed against him, squeezing my legs on either side of his thighs. I wrapped an arm around his neck, bringing him closer to kiss him harder, as he began to raise his hips to press his erection against me.

I loved how he teased me; I felt my muscles tighten every time his bulge brushed me. But it'd been a week since we'd had sex and I just wanted him to fuck me, _hard_, and leave me limping for days.

Then, he seemed to have read my mind. He broke the kiss, and I breathed heavily against him, and before I had a chance to prepare myself, his hands gripped my hips, almost painfully, tore away my panties, _tore_ them away, and his erection penetrated me, sharply, in one go.

I tried to withhold the scream but I simply couldn't, and it tore from my throat. It burned, despite the fact it'd only been a week. One of his arms wrapped around my stomach while the other hand cupped my breast; I felt his forehead press against the back of my neck as he thrust into me, slowly. I bit down on my lip, squeezing my eyes closed, reaching behind me to bury my fingers in his hair. It still burned, but it was good. It was _so __**good**_...

With a gentle grip he began a smooth rhythm, thrusting into me gently as he kissed along my shoulder up towards the junction to my neck. I bit down on my lip to withhold moaning like an animal, delighting as his fingers tickled my side, but when his fingers slid down along my front between my legs to tickle me in that sweet little spot, I pressed my head back against his shoulder and let out a cry of absolute pleasure. His lips grazed my jaw and his nose tickled the shell of my ear. The hand that cupped my breast lifted and his fingers brushed my jaw, moving up to cup my face and my eyelashes fluttered closed. I wanted to cry.

And then, gently, he eased me forward onto all fours, and I sank down onto my forearms and buried my face in the sheets that smelled intoxicating, smelled like him, and I'd known why he'd wanted to change positions because as soon as his chest touched my back and I arched up into him, he sprung into action, thrusting hard, and I pulled at my sheets between my fingers and moaned into the sheets. The burn was long gone, and it felt so good it was just like bliss.

He was fast and hard, and I could feel his grunts rumbling up through his chest at my back. I don't know how he did it, perhaps because we hadn't had sex in a week, but he was relentless, never stopping, not even slowing down, but instead taking the time to search out my hand with his and intertwine our fingers.

It seemed to be over way too quickly. I felt his hands claw at my body and I knew he was close, and I wanted nothing more but to change positions and kiss him and moan into his mouth, but then I could feel that familiar sensation building up in my stomach, and desperate for my orgasm I held myself up on my forearms and pushed back against his thrusts, meeting him, listening to his throaty groans, and he seemed to move faster and faster until-

My orgasm rolled over my like a shockwave of electricity, igniting my limbs and numbing all other senses. I lowered my head and moaned, squeezing his hand, squeezing the sheets. It was hard and strong and immobilized me, and when it was over I could have died, happy.

I collapsed down onto my stomach, not able to hold myself up anymore, and Dean gently laid down overtop of me, covering me with his body. He'd had his orgasm, even in the throes of that mind-numbing orgasm, I had felt his hands grab me the way he did and felt his thrusts that were so hard it hurt. It was the first time in a long time we'd orgasmed together at about the same time. It was absolutely perfect.

After a few moments, and our breathing had calmed and the sweat started to cool, Dean eased himself away from me, and I sighed at the loss of him, but then he turned me onto my back. I looked up at him, sleepily, and kissed him gently when he leaned down to graze my lips with his own. I slipped my arms around his neck, holding him close, never wanting to let him go.

"Welcome home," he whispered between kisses.

**/**


	11. Chapter 11

**A/N: **Very special thanks to **Cleonie 'Jayne Mansfield' Quin, Artistic Punk, happytide, ForeverACharmedOne, anon, Musicaddict1, drivenunder, ZenyZootSuit, linalove, Ravenclaw992, Guest, corbsxx, pourquoibella, Lady Liesel, need4luv, Random reader **and** OperaGhost18. **Thanks so much for your reviews, guys! Enjoy the update. :D

**Scythe**

**Chapter Eleven**

**/**

"So..." Dean mused as he flossed his teeth, looking at himself in the mirror, while I stepped out of the shower and wrapped myself in one of his ginormous towels. "How exactly did your Dad and Diana meet?"

I sighed heavily; my stomach had had one big lump of misery in it since I had gotten up that morning. They were coming for dinner and I was _not _looking forward to it at all. I sidled beside him next to the vanity and grabbed my brush. "She was his secretary."

Dean stopped flossing abruptly and watched me as I sat down on the toilet lid and started to brush out my hair. When I looked at him, he had this great big grin on his face, as though he found it absolutely hilarious. "Are you serious?"

I rolled my eyes at him. It was so cliched.

Snickering a little to himself, Dean turned back to the mirror and continued flossing. "Well, that explains it then."

I squeezed my hair as I ran my brush through it, letting the water catch on the towel, and I watched him. "Explains what?"

"Well," Dean mused, setting the floss down and examining his teeth closely in the mirror before looking at me. "How old is she, exactly?"

I sighed heavily. "She's 32."

Again, Dean snickered a little before sipping mouthwash and gargling it. I wanted to comment how funny he thought it was that my Dad was married to someone a mere seven years older than me, old enough to be my big sister, not necessarily my stepmother, but I didn't. I finished brushing out my hair and cradled my chin in my palm, staring down at my bare feet and sighing heavily.

"Hey," I said, looking up at him, watching as he finished gargling his mouthwash and spat it out in the sink. "When do I get to meet your parents?"

Dean shrugged as he screwed on the cap to the mouthwash bottle. "Well, both my parents are elderly and still live in Italy...so probably never," and then he looked at me over his shoulder, giving me that bad-boy grin I loved so much. "I've got a brother in Seattle, but he's an even bigger pervert than I am."

I smiled at him, but bowed my chin to stare down at my toenails once more. I don't know why, but it kinda bothered me that I'd never have a chance to meet his parents. Of course, it wasn't exactly something we'd talked about or planned on...not that anything about the relationship was necessarily planned to begin with.

"Oh," he turned around and leaned back against the vanity, crossing his arms over his chest. "Do Dad or Diana have any allergies? Peanuts?"

I thought about it. Dad had animal fur allergies, not food allergies. I didn't know about Diana and I didn't really care. I shook my head, not looking at him. "I don't think so."

Dean made an affirmative sound in his throat as he stood up to go into the bedroom to get dressed. I just sat there and listened to him remove articles of clothing and get dressed for the day; he had to lecture in an hour and it was my second official day of R&R house arrest, and it was bumming me out. Despite the fact we were a mere few weeks into the semester, I was grateful for the time off and the chance to sit down and think a little about things. That being said, I missed GothamU, I missed my classes. I missed being able to go to the lecture halls and sit and pay attention to the lecture so I wouldn't have to think about the hallucination, or the trip to the hospital, or this impending doom that was the dinner with Dad and Diana and Dean.

I sighed heavily and went into the bedroom to get dressed. Dean was buttoning up his cotton candy pink shirt when I stepped around him to go to the dresser. "What are you gonna do today?"

I opened the top drawer and pulled out a pair of black panties and a clean bra, and I sat down on the bed to put them on, shrugging. "I've got some reading to do for class, and Lydia said she was gonna come by before lunch with homework."

Dean was quiet for a moment, and then I heard him grumble a little in his throat. "Well, y'know, don't push it, alright? You're supposed to be resting."

I smiled just a little. "I know. It's just reading."

I pulled my hair over my shoulder and fastened my bra at the back, and that was when I felt weight on the bed behind me, felt Dean's fingers just lightly brush my arm, and I felt him press his lips at the junction where my neck and shoulder met. I shivered and bit down on my lower lip; since I'd come home from the hospital, we'd been very intimate. It was difficult, right at that moment, not to turn around and jump on top of him and keep him from going to lecture.

I felt his breath fan over my cool skin. "Can you promise me something?"

I pressed my chin to my shoulder and gave a little smile. "Anything."

I meant it, too.

He pressed his chin into my shoulder, grazing my nose with his, and I could feel his breath tumble down over my skin. "Can you please promise me that you will...y'know..."

My smile faltered but I waited to hear him out.

He brushed his fingers up along my bare arm again, as though he was really trying to figure out the most gentle way to say what he wanted to say. "I know you don't like your stepmom...and I know you and your Dad don't always get along..."

I sighed and closed my eyes. Biggest understatement ever.

"But let's make sure this dinner goes great, okay?" he asked, very gently and genuinely, and it made me smile. I knew he wanted to make a good impression on Dad, since he was almost twice my age and Dad was so obviously uncomfortable about that. Not only did I appreciate that, I loved it. Given how wonderful he'd been to me during my stay at the hospital, I wanted to do right by him, not matter how hard it might be.

I brushed his hand with my fingertips and looked at him over my shoulder with a smile. "I promise."

Dean grinned and planted a big sloppy kiss on the spot where my nose met my cheekbone and it made me giggle like a little girl. He stood up from the bed, and I sat there and listened to him leave the bedroom, gather his things from the office, go into the kitchen presumably for coffee, and leave the apartment. When he was gone, I got up and lazily pulled on my jeans and a comfy T-shirt, and I went into the kitchen to pour myself some coffee and looked out the window. The leaves were really changing and soon they'd all be orange and red and yellow. In a few hours Dad and Diana would be by for dinner.

/

I was in the bedroom changing my top when the doorbell rang, at exactly 7pm, and I heard Dean rush to the door, open it, and suddenly there was a flurry of voices, mostly Dean's, because I could only imagine the look on Dad's face as he stepped into the apartment to realize that this was where I was living with a man who was almost twice my age. My stomach twisted and churned very uncomfortably; I went into the bathroom to take a Gravol when I heard Dean's voice down the hallway.

"Han! Your folks are here."

I took in a deep breath and stared at myself in the mirror. I looked freaked out of my mind, but I willed myself to be calm and take the whole evening just one step at a time. I did so solemnly swear to be on my best behaviour; I would not stir the pot. I would be pleasant. And Dean was wonderful; he was charming, he was intelligent, his cooking was phenomenal. Dad would _have _to like him, he'd just have to, there was nothing about him not to like.

After a moment, I left the bedroom and moved into the living room, where Dad and Diana were sitting on the couch side by side. Diana was dolled up, as per usual, but though she seemed kind of uncomfortable, she still maintained a little smile on her thickly-lipsticked lips, whereas Dad just looked as though he was attending a funeral. I came into the living room and they both looked up. Diana smiled fully and they both stood.

"Hey," I breathed in greeting.

"Hey Jo," Dad said, and reached forward to hug me. I hugged him back but not too hard. Our conversation at the hospital still weighed heavy on my mind. When he let me go, he shoved his hands in his pockets and tried to smile. "How're you doing?"

I shrugged. "I'm fine."

"You look awfully pale." Diana said, and though I knew she wasn't saying it to be a bitch, I couldn't help the twang of real irritation that sprang on my nerves.

I swallowed and managed a tight little smile. "That's because you guys are both so tan," I said, looking between them. They were tan, too; I'd never seen Dad look so brown. I guessed most of the honeymoon had been spent out in the sun, lucky bastards. "How was the rest of the honeymoon?"

Diana flashed a white-toothed smile, as though she was a model smiling for a bunch of cameras. "Oh, it was wonderful," she reached over and massaged Dad's shoulder with her hand, her huge engagement ring flashing in the low light, and Dad couldn't help but smile a little. "We're pretty sure Adam West was staying at our hotel."

"Adam West? That's nuts, that totally takes me back. Here you go, guys. Drinks for all." Dean emerged from the kitchen with a tray of drinks, passed Dad a glass of scotch, and gave Diana what looked like a white wine spritzer. Dean was wearing this cerulean shirt that looked very sharp on him with his graying dark hair and his skin tone, and he was clean shaven and very smiley and I couldn't stop staring at him and grinning to myself.

Dad and Diana sat down on the couch, tentatively sipping their drinks, and I sat down on the love seat while Dean disappeared into the kitchen and reemerged, a few minutes later, and handed me a bottle of beer before collapsing down onto the love seat beside me.

"So...Dean," Dad said, very slowly, and I watched the expression on his face. I knew he was trying to be civil, and I very much appreciated it. But at the same time, I was expecting to see his eyes and his expression go dark at any moment. "This is your place?"

Dean sipped his beer and nodded. "Yes sir."

"How long have you been here?"

Dean made a contemplative sound as though he was trying to remember. "Just about six years," and then he laughed a little in disbelief. "Geez, yeah, six years," he looked at me, grinning, and put his arm around me, which I didn't think was a great move, but obviously it didn't occur to him that it wasn't. "Man I'm getting old."

I squeezed my eyes closed for a single second; I desperately wished he hadn't said that. Dad didn't need the reminder.

Dad nodded a little apprehensively, and his eyes flickered between me and Dean for a moment. "And where did you live before?"

"Metropolis," Dean replied, cheerfully. "Finished my dissertation at MetU."

I watched Diana's eyebrows perk as a very large smile broke out on her lips and she turned and looked at Dad, who didn't look back at her, but he did nod a little as though he were impressed. "Well, that's...that's marvelous."

At that moment, the timer on the oven beeped loudly, startling Dean so that he put his beer bottle on the coffee table and stood up. "Shit! Excuse me a minute."

Diana watched Dean get up and head to the kitchen with rather wide eyes, which puzzled me, but then she turned to me with a strangely excited smile. "He cooks?"

I sipped my beer and nodded. "Yeah, he's...he's an awesome cook. Made me macaroni and cheese when I came home from the hospital. To die for."

Diana nodded as though she was very impressed, looking into the kitchen as if watching Dean at work, and then she turned her gaze back to me.

"Oh the food in Hawaii was just superb, wasn't it Frankie?" she turned to Dad.

Dad sipped his scotch and nodded in agreement. "Yeah, lobster every night-"

Diana laughed her breathy little laugh and smacked his arm playfully. "Oh, not every night-"

He turned to her with a smile. "Well damn near every night," he turned to me, and there was laughter in his eyes. "They totally spoiled us."

"They really did," Diana giggled. "We were lucky. Pina coladas at all hours, they'd never let your glass go empty."

Dean reemerged from the kitchen, grinning away before sitting down beside me and wrapping an arm around my shoulders. "Sounds like my kinda place."

A moment of awkward silence followed then, where everyone took slow, tentative sips from their drinks and Dad and Diana let their gazes wander around the room, as though they hadn't properly inspected it beforehand. Admittedly, it had been going well, so far. Tempting them with questions about their honeymoon was the obvious way to go, they were still in honeymoon phase and therefore probably less likely to get scornful about the fact I was living with my professor.

After a moment, though, Diana turned to look me in the eye and gave me a great big smile, and I returned it hesitantly before sipping from my beer bottle. I felt Dean's thumb massaging my shoulder, as if to remind me of what I had promised him early that morning.

Diana shifted on the couch, crossing one leg over the other and smoothing out her skirt. "So, uh..." she cleared her throat in an effort to fill the void of room. She sipped her drink and pointed between me and Dean. "How did you two meet?"

I smirked in my throat then, but hid it with a well-timed cough while taking a sip of my beer. It wasn't needed, though. Dad turned to Diana with such a sharp look in his eyes that I was sure he was going to snap right at her. No doubt he told her all about it when he met Dean at the hospital; he'd probably warned her not to bring it up before they stepped in the door. And yet, the question hung in the air like a bad smell.

Dad's voice was calm but laced with anger. "Diana-"

I shook my head. "It's fine," I told him, setting down my beer bottle and catching Diana's gaze as she looked at me. I tried to smile at her, not to be understanding, but because I couldn't quite get over how she asked what was obviously such a touchy question. "I took a class with Dean in the fall and then another in the winter-"

Dean nodded and made a sound of great approval as he was sipping his beer. He swallowed and pointed to Dad. "You'll be happy to hear she's a damn good student, and I'm not just saying that because I think she's cute."

I couldn't help but smile at him; boyfriend or not, he had been my favourite professor, and it was a pretty damn cool thing to get such a citation from your favourite professor. Looking over at Dad, though, he looked less than enthused.

Dean continued as though he hadn't noticed Dad's stare. "I totally mean it, I'd be twice as scrupulous with her papers and she'd still get some of the best marks in the class."

I pressed my eyes together. I knew he meant it to be a compliment about my studies, and that Dean probably said it because I'd told him earlier about Dad's whole idea about me taking a semester off and how I didn't want to. But the comment reinforced, once again, that Dean _had _been my professor for two classes, he had marked my papers, and now we were living together and sleeping together in his apartment. I had hoped, that in getting it out in the open how we'd had classes together and then came to be together later, we could move from the fact that Dean was a professor onto the fact that Dean was a _man_, like any other, who I had fallen in love with and was in a relationship with.

It didn't seem possible now; judging by the look in his eyes, Dad would forever look at Dean and remember that this man stuck it up his daughter and marked her papers, too. "Well that's...comforting."

Beside me, I knew Dean felt the scorn but was trying to hide it behind a dashing smile. I couldn't help but shake my head a little, avoiding Diana's gaze because I knew it was on me, looking for some reassurance or...something, I don't know.

"Well," Dean said after a moment of silence. "Why don't we gather, beef's just about ready," We all stood up, taking our drinks, and moving slowly from the living room into the kitchen to the dining table. "Hope you guys are hungry."

I pressed a hand to my stomach, knowing full well I'd have to eat something soon, because I felt like I was going to be sick.

/

Dean had gone all out and made the best meal: roast beef with garlic mashed potatoes, green beans with tomatoes and slivered almonds and Caesar salad. I watched Dad very carefully throughout the first few bites; despite the fact he didn't say anything, I knew he was impressed. His silence pretty much proved it. He was sitting across from Dean and was pretty careful not to make any actual eye contact, which kinda bothered me, but I guessed it was to be expected.

After a little while of eating and chewing in silence, Diana reached for her wine glass and cleared her throat. "So, Jo, we had a chance to meet your therapist at the hospital," she said and took a sip, and though it still kinda bothered me that she was calling me _Jo_, what bothered me more was that she'd brought up Crane during what was already a very tenuous meal. I watched her put down her wine glass and run a fingertip over her bottom lip before she gave me a naughty little smile. "He's quite a looker."

I snorted and looked down at my meat as I started to cut it. I couldn't get over how everyone I knew seemed to love the guy. Sure, I wasn't immune to the fact that he was a ridiculously gorgeous man, but the typical smarminess often distracted from the appeal. I shrugged my shoulders out. "I guess, if you can overlook how contemptuous he is. "

Dad looked up and gave me a very pointed look. "He didn't strike me as contemptuous...he was a little chilly, maybe, but very professional."

Dean laughed a little in his throat and put down his utensils to wipe his mouth with his napkin. "You should hear her after a session with him, she goes off on such a tear," he nudged me with his elbow, and I just rolled my eyes. "If I didn't know any better, I'd say she was in love with the guy."

Ah mah_ gawd! _Perish the thought!

I looked over at Dean and he just gave me his smart-ass cheeky grin and I couldn't help the little smile that splayed on my lips. Nevertheless I pressed my hand against his chin and gave him a playful push. "Screw you, professor."

Diana gave me a strange little squished-face smile, as if she thought Dean and I were just adorable together. "Is he married?" she asked, as she cut another piece of beef.

I reached for my beer and shook my head. I couldn't imagine Crane finding a woman who could put up with him for more than a week, let alone happily ever after. "No, I'm pretty sure he'd castrate himself so sex wouldn't get in the way of being a pompous prick."

As soon as it left my lips, there was silence all around, and I immediately regretted I had said anything at all. I could feel Dean's hard gaze on me, as if he was telepathically saying _really_? I'd been doing so well too, and now the rest of the evening was going straight to hell, I could feel it.

Dad wasn't impressed at all; when I looked up, Diana was looking down at her food awkwardly, pushing the string beans around with her fork, as though she was anticipating the onslaught. Dad's eyebrows were furrowed. "He was perfectly polite when we met him-"

"Well of course he's gonna be nice to you, you're the parent," I told him, without being able to stop myself. "With me, when it's just the two of us, he's judgmental and an asshole-"

Dad all but threw down his fork on his plate. The clatter startled Diana beside him. "_Johanna_."

Next to me Dean was face-palming. I knew all he wanted was to have a nice, quiet, awkward-as-ass but otherwise eventless dinner with his young girlfriend's parents, and I had ruined it, I knew that, and I was prepared to apologize and make it up to him later, I really was. I just didn't know why Crane had to be brought up and why we had to talk about him.

"You don't take session with him, Dad," I said, trying my best to keep my tone as rational as I could without going off the hook. Across from me, Diana took a long sip of her wine and looked off in some random direction. "You don't know."

Dad buried his face in his hands, totally exasperated, and when he looked up at me again he was scowling hard and his eyes were angry. "Well I'm sure you don't help things by having such a wretched attitude!"

I looked down at my plate to keep from getting angrier than I already was. This incredible tension settled there amongst the four of us; no one was touching their food, their cutlery, their wineglasses, anything; even Diana had resolved to inspecting her fake fingernails. I could feel Dean beside me stewing; I was sure as hell gonna hear it from him later.

After a moment, Dad picked up his fork again, and sensing he'd caused a scene, he fiddled with a piece of steak on his plate. Diana thumbed the stem of her wine glass, and Dean took a long swig from his beer bottle.

"Honestly," Dad breathed, shaking his head just a little bit. "I mean, this is why Dr. Crane thinks you have a personality disorder."

And...my heart dropped into my stomach. I felt like I'd been slapped right across the face.

Dean looked up at Dad so suddenly and pointedly that it made me look at him, beside me, and then I looked at Dad, who looked down at his plate sheepishly. Diana across from me sighed heavily and pressed her fingertips under her eyes, as though she were anticipating the real shit to hit the fan.

But I just stared between them stupidly. I knew what I heard Dad say, I heard it and I'd never forget it...and nobody was saying anything about it.

"...A what?" I breathed, and even I could hear the shock in my voice.

Dean beside me sighed heavily, and he turned towards me in his chair, putting a hand on my shoulder as though he was expecting me to throw a fit and wanted to keep it from happening. "Han-"

I didn't look at him. I continued to stare at Dad; I was aghast. "A personality disorder?"

Dad shook his head as though he completely regretted saying anything. Next to him, Diana was watching him with a strange apprehensive look on her face. "It's just what he told us and I think he's on to something," Dad said, rubbing his forehead with his hand and shrugging his shoulders. "It seems to make a lot of sense."

I stared at him, but he wouldn't return my gaze, as though he were afraid to look at me. At that moment, I knew he was being 100% truthful, that was exactly what Crane had told him, a _personality disorder_.

Across from me, Diana gave me a strange look with her eyes wide and her lips pressed together, as though she'd been privy to something that was obviously none of her business. Dean massaged my shoulder with his fingers; whether he was trying to get my attention or keep me calm, I don't know. All I could do was stare down at my plate in shock; I tried to pick up my fork to eat something and I had to put it down. I wanted to take a long drink of my beer but at the same time I just didn't want to. I couldn't say anything, I didn't know _what _to say.

Finally, after what seemed like an eternity of that awkward silence, I pushed my chair back and set my napkin on the table. "Excuse me."

I stood up, left the table, and hurried down the hallway towards the bedroom. I knew I shouldn't have left the table, I knew it was rude...but I had to get away from it. I had to get away from that aching silence and just...think things over a little.

I went into the bedroom and sat down on the edge of the bed with my back to the door. I didn't know what to do; I kinda wanted to cry, but at the same time I knew it wasn't warranted, there wasn't anything to cry about. I felt like I should have been angry, but what was there to be angry about? All I felt was just...void. Shock and void.

A personality disorder. A _personality disorder_...

I heard the footsteps coming down the hall and waited, not saying a word. When Dean came in, I heard him sigh as he sat down beside me but he didn't put an arm around me the way I half expected him to. My guess was that he wasn't really sure what I was feeling and didn't want to make things worse.

"Han-"

I sniffed a little. "Did you know?"

It was obvious that he _had _known, given how he'd reacted when Dad announced it at the dinner table, and though I felt as though I should have been furious with him for keeping it from me, I wasn't. There was literally no other emotion I was feeling at that moment other than the shock.

Dean sucked in a breath and let it out slowly, and then he nodded. "...Your dad did tell me about it at the hospital, since Crane didn't think it was any of my business."

I looked over at him; he had his head bowed until he looked up at me, and I saw the heavy look in his eyes. I swallowed. "...Do you think it's true?"

I saw the surprise catch in Dean's eyes and his expression, the question obviously catching him off guard. My guess was he hadn't thought that his opinion meant anything in the matter, but it mattered to me. I lived with him; of anyone, I figured he would have noticed if my behaviour had changed or was in any way really...I didn't even know.

Dean's expression softened, and he looked away as though trying to figure out what to say, exactly. I watched him with my lips pressed together, the silence making me nervous. I didn't want to hear him say something to confirm it...but at the same time I wanted him to be truthful.

Finally, Dean shrugged his shoulders and looked at me. "Han I don't know anything about it, and the last thing I want to do is confuse you."

I bowed my head and nodded a little. I appreciated that, I really did; all that was in my head was _personality disorder_, I didn't know what it meant exactly, and obviously Dean didn't either. I rubbed my eyes with my fingertips and sighed heavily.

Then, Dean gently set his hand over mine, resting on my kneecap, and gave me a bit of a squeeze. "I think you should stick it out with Crane," he said, quite carefully. "See what he tells you about it in these next few sessions."

I sat up and sighed heavily, brushing my hair out of my face. "Yeah..." I knew he was right; it was Crane's diagnosis, he was the best one to talk about it with. He'd know what to tell me about it and what to do about it, much as I hated to admit it. I looked over at Dean, and he gave me a very sweet smile as we sat there beside each other, in the darkness of the bedroom, with the light from the hallway pouring into the room. I leaned over and rested my head against his shoulder. "Guess I need therapy after all, professor."

I heard Dean smirk a little but he kissed my forehead and held my hand in his tightly. We sat there like that for awhile; for a moment, I had completely forgotten that Dad and Diana were still sitting in the dining room, probably contemplating whether or not they should leave, and in a way I wanted nothing but for them to just quietly slip out so that I could lie in bed and let Dean's body swallow me, hold me tight, keep me protected and loved.

But after a moment, Dean pat my kneecap. "C'mon, we better get back out there before Diana drowns herself in the pinot."

I laughed a little because I had to laugh a little at that moment, on top of everything. I stood up, my hand still in his, and walked with him down the hallway back to the dining room.

/


	12. Chapter 12

**A/N: Yikes…**just about a year since updating. I'll try not to let it happen again, guys. :( Very special thanks to **Artistic Punk, SlenderXLover, KorroksApostle, Ravenclaw992, linalove, pourquoibella, Cleonie 'Jayne Mansfield' Quin, ZenyZootSuit, LivinJgrl123, AliceMoodDark, Moka-girl, Guest, Guest, Hypertown, MiSSxMELON, **and **MiriamMarina **for your reviews. :D

**Scythe**

**Chapter Twelve**

**/**

As soon as I sat in The Chair in Crane's office, I let it swallow me up with a weird feeling of real familiarity; I'd missed it, in a way. Though my time with Crane had so far been short (and not exactly pleasant), there was an insane comfort I got from his office. It was, in many ways, a kind of odd sanctuary, school but not school, the real world but not the real world at all, just a strange little place with the afternoon sun coming in, the smell of books, and a rather comfortable chair I'd never realized I might actually miss after being away from it a week.

Crane sat down in his seat across from me, crossing one leg over the other ever so elegantly and letting his hands settle in his lap overtop of his notebook. He too looked calm, a little more relaxed than last I saw him. My guess was that he was happy not to have to do another session in the hospital. I was, too.

"Well," he began calmly, offering me a (slightly apprehensive) smile and keeping his eyes fixed with mine. "I can see you have something on your mind. Would you like to talk about it?"

I did and I didn't. If he had really assigned the diagnosis of personality disorder to my file folder, I wanted to know what it meant, what I had to do to make it better. But at the same time, I had no idea what it was, and I was worried about what I was going to hear.

"I'm not sure," I said at last, in all honesty. "Seeings how I wasn't exactly privy to the fact that I may have a personality disorder."

I watched his face fall quite suddenly, and at first his eyebrows furred as if in confusion and then his eyes flashed, as though they'd been electrically charged. He mouth tensed as if he meant to curl his lip and sneer, but he caught himself before he could. All in all it was surprising, and I watched it all unfold with what was probably a real dumbfounded look on my face. I'd never seen him taken aback like that.

And he did not completely recover, either. He shifted in his seat, somewhat uncomfortable, and his eyes flitted about the room for a split second. "I see," he said after awhile, tensely. "And just who gave you that information?"

I regretted mentioning it, and I was hesitant to say who'd mentioned it, given how he looked pissed off enough to kill whoever it was. "It just...I...my dad and stepmom were over for dinner and it just kinda...came out over the conversation."

Crane regarded me seriously for a moment, as though trying to figure out if I was lying to him or not, and then he dropped his eyes to review his notes in his little notebook, as if looking for a plan B. "I see..."

I rubbed my temple idly, staring at the tissue box sitting on the coffee table between us. "Why didn't you tell me?" His eyes snapped up at me as though I'd reprimanded him for something and I was quick to finish my thought. "I mean...didn't we agree to discuss a diagnosis? I...seem to remember a conversation we had about discussing a diagnosis..."

Truth be told, I was weirded out. Crane stared at me, his eyes shaking a little, like he was trying to juggle two conversations at once, the one with me, and another one in his head or something. His eyes were so blue, _so _blue_, _that I was convinced for a second they were going to catch fire.

"We did agree," he said tensely, and I could tell he was trying to maintain his temper. "but it isn't a solid diagnosis, Hanna. It's a..." he held out his hands, and quieted as though trying to affix the right word to it. "Possibility."

I watched him and took it all in, and then I had to look away, feeling somewhat relieved but at the same time weirdly disappointed. On the one hand, the news that he hadn't totally settled on the diagnosis of a personality disorder was welcome, but then it just opened itself up to the possibility of something else, something _worse, _maybe. If there was something wrong with me, and quite obviously there was, I wanted to do what I could to fix it, help it out a little, as soon as was possible.

I didn't say anything, I just let the news wash over me, and crossing my arms over my chest, I sat myself as far back into the chair as I could.

Crane watched me, and it seemed that in the silence that had settled between us he had taken the time to calm down a little. His expression wasn't quite as grim, his eyes not quite as flashy. He adjusted his glasses and shifted -almost sheepishly- in his seat, before letting the tiniest of smiles grace his lips. "How has your time off been so far?"

I looked down at my hands in my lap. "It's been good, actually. I got home and slept for a day and a half."

One of Crane's finely trimmed eyebrows rose in piqued interest. "On top of the rest from the hospital?"

I looked up at him and nodded. "Yeah..." I shrugged my shoulders. "Guess the doctors were right, maybe I'm just...really exhausted."

Crane held out his hands slightly, as though it were an entirely plausible explanation. "It's been an exhausting year for you."

I snorted a little in my throat, considering everything that had happened in the year, and about Crane's supposed theory that I had an Elektra complex. Just the thought of it all was fairly exhausting. "Yeah, I guess."

We sat in silence for a moment and then Crane shifted a little in his seat, turning a page in his notebook and reviewing what he'd written. I watched his eyes flitter over his notes; I don't know why, but the man's eyes were so blue they almost didn't look natural. Sometimes you just had to stare at them to really figure out what-

"So," Crane sat up in his seat and raised his eyes to me, and I sat up straight to attention. "Your father had a chance to meet Dr. Roberts at the hospital."

I resisted the urge to sneer indignantly as I remembered what had happened at the doomed dinner with Dad and Diana. I shook my head slightly, looking away from him. "Yeah."

"Did that go as badly as you feared?" Crane asked, quite delicately.

Scenes from the hospital came back to me then, a flurry of memories: Dean all excited because he had the sense the introductions had gone well, and then Dad telling me in the garden how he wanted to punch Dean out. And then the dinner, fuck...nobody would have called the whole thing a success, but on the one hand they _had _accepted the dinner invitation when they could have refused. Dean was as hospitable and wonderful as could be, didn't give them any reason _not_ to like him. They hadn't gotten into a shouting match or a fist fight or anything of the sort...not a success. But it could have gone a lot worse.

"Well..." I was hesitant to describe it one way over the other. "I guess not. I mean, Dad wasn't over the moon about it, but we all had dinner the other night and Dad didn't seem so bad," He was more pissed off with me than he was with Dean, that much was blatantly clear. I managed a little smile. "Dean was charming as ever."

By the end of the night, despite the eruption over dinner, Diana had either liquored up enough or was polite enough to have a fairly enjoyable evening, or so she told us. She was rather taken with Dean, that much was clear, and in a sense I had to consider that a victory; maybe she'd talk some sense into Dad, convince him that Dean wasn't such a bad guy.

When I looked up at Dr. Crane, his gaze was hard on me, his blue eyes narrowing. "Did you tell Dr. Roberts about your hallucination?"

The question surprised me, because I hadn't considered it before. Dean _hadn't _asked about the details of the hallucination, not once. And I hadn't exactly offered any information about it myself, but I probably would have if he asked. It seemed kind of weird…surely Dean would have asked about it at some point, if not right away…but then again perhaps he felt it was none of his business or it would just make matters worse? I had no idea, but suddenly I felt a little put off. "No. He hasn't asked and I...haven't really said anything about it."

He nodded a little, as though he'd been anticipating that answer, and took a moment to write something in his notebook. I looked down at my hands and realized I was getting fidgety, picking at my fingernails and wringing my hands, even when I wasn't conscious of it. I stuck my hands in the pockets of my sweater and sat back in the chair, watching Dr. Crane write. I chewed at my bottom lip thoughtfully. "Y'know how..."

Suddenly, I wished I hadn't opened my mouth, or that by some miracle in the air of GothamU he didn't hear what I'd said…but Dr. Crane looked up with his eyebrows piqued in curiosity, his pen lying dormant between his long white fingers.

Part of me told me not to continue my question, but before I knew it, it had already left my mouth. "Y'know how you told me that Dean told the nurses he was my fiancee?"

Crane simply blinked at me and then nodded. "Yes?"

I swallowed while my cheeks burned, and I found that I was so mortified that I couldn't even look at him. I couldn't believe I actually asked that, that I let it slip out of my head as easy as that. I could feel Dr. Crane's curious gaze on me.

"Have you and Dr. Roberts discussed marriage?" He asked after a moment of silence.

I looked up at him, alarmed. "No!"

Dr. Crane shifted in his seat a little, tilting his head to the side, as though we had touched on a subject he was rather enjoying. I could see a little smile playing at his lips. "But you've given it some thought?"

I couldn't deny that; we were living together, it seemed as though the next plausible step was to get married, after all, though we'd never discussed it; we never discussed it because we both seemed perfectly tranquil with how things were at present. But I had thought about it from time to time, thought about the wedding we'd have, if there would be much of a wedding...it would have to be after my schooling was finished, which would have been fine...would things change that much if we did?

I found myself shrugging in response to his question. "Well, I would like to get married someday. I mean...I'm 25, not getting any younger," and then I smirked a little, looking up at him and giving him a smile. "Like you said, perfect specimen to get pregnant."

Dr. Crane considered me and his expression fell into a frown, and his eyes flitted off to the side for a moment as though he was trying to remember something. He crossed his legs, folding his arms in his lap, and then cradled his face with his fingers, looking at me curiously. "When did I say that?"

"When I was..." but I found myself fading out, realizing that he actually _hadn't _said it at all, that he'd said it in that horrible invasive dream I'd had.

He watched me quietly, and when I looked at him he still had that frown on his face, but looked to me expectedly. "Hanna?"

I shook my head, dismissing it; the last thing, the _very _last thing I wanted, was to discuss that dream with him. On top of everything, I didn't need to know that I was having dreams about my therapist showing up in my bedroom talking to me about pregnancy. "I'm sorry, it must have been someone else."

Whether he bought that or not was hard to gauge based on his expression. His eyes narrowed to me a little bit, but then he looked down at his notebook as though eager to move on to another topic, and I would have seconded that notion out loud, if necessary. I could feel the blood gushing in the apples of my cheeks from the embarrassment.

After a moment of silence, he sucked in a breath through his nostrils and let it out very slowly. "Hanna..."

I could tell by the tenuous air between us what he was going to ask. "I'm not pregnant," I told him, beating him to it. "If that's what you're thinking."

Dr. Crane watched me quite carefully with that frown. "You're sure? It's possible your exhaustion is being caused by a pregnancy."

With that, I felt my heart jump up into my throat.

"No," I said, shaking my head, not looking at him. "No, I can't be pregnant, Dean and I are always so careful, we use double protection."

We did partly because I had been on birth control before we even met, and then because Dean had been so insistent on it, specifically when we had just been fooling around, at first. We were on the same page, to be sure; we were having fun, and we were having a _lot _of fun, and that was all we wanted, and we were careful, we were so careful.

I couldn't be...I _couldn't _be...

I looked down at my stomach and felt it churn under my gaze. No...no, they would have done the necessary tests at the hospital that would have picked up on a pregnancy...wouldn't they? Surely they would have taken that into consideration, given my age and...well, I presumed since Dean said he was my fiancee, they would have asked about our sexual activity to rule out some things. But I didn't know, I didn't even think to ask him, or ask the doctors, and it had never been brought up at all. And with all the excitement over the therapy and the hospital stay and everything, I couldn't even remember for sure when I had my last period.

But...the hallucination wouldn't have been caused by a pregnancy. That was a head thing, a brain thing, not something that could be triggered by...hormone changes...

I sucked in a very alarmed breath and held it for moments while goosebumps rolled over my arms. Suddenly I had the greatest urge to hyperventilate, but I fought, absolutely fought to keep it cool.

If Dr. Crane picked up on my sudden anxiety, he didn't show it. "Are you opposed to the notion of having children with Dr. Roberts?"

I shook my head before I had a chance to really give it any thought, but of course that had crossed my mind once or twice too, same as the marriage thing. Dean would make an amazing father, I knew it, I knew he'd be very caring and attentive and nurturing, I knew he would be; I'd thought about what it would be like if we turned Dean's office into a nursery, but only fleetingly, never seriously. Never seriously enough to ever broach the subject with him directly.

"No," I said. "Not opposed, but..."

But somehow it didn't seem to come into the picture. Dean never mentioned it, ever, though surely he must have thought about it too, given how we were living together.

I could feel Dr. Crane looking at me, waiting. "But?"

I sucked in a breath and let it out in a sigh, not sure how to continue. I felt at a loss.

Luckily, I didn't have to, as the buzzer went off abruptly, interrupting my train of thought.

Dr. Crane looked lazily at the buzzer over his shoulder and uncrossed his legs, and then he leaned towards me and gave me a little smile. "Let's continue this on Thursday, shall we?"

I nodded, too happy to have the session done and over with. "Okay."

He stood up and set down his notebook on his desk, and then went to the door to open it for me. He nodded to me as I went towards it. "Until then, take care and get your rest."

I slung my purse over my shoulder and gave him a short but appreciative nod, despite the fact I was feeling a little sick to my stomach. "See ya, Dr. Crane."

**/**

I was barely in the door 10 minutes, having placed the box on the coffee-table, when Lydia knocked and let herself in, all smiles, until she started to unravel her scarf from around her neck and saw the pregnancy test. Her smile was gone, and her eyes went wide, and before I knew that she'd seen it, it was too late, and all I could do was prepare for the onslaught.

"Oh my _gawd!" _She shrieked, and pointed to the box. "_This _is why you called me over?!"

I clasped my hands together in front of me to beg her to be lenient. "Lydia, please don't freak out, please, I beg you."

There was no hiding the upset in my voice, I could hear it as I know she heard it, I could see it as her scowl softened and her eyes became more gentle. But she crossed her arms over her chest and her eyes went back to the box. I knew she didn't want to look at it but she couldn't draw her eyes away. I sighed heavily and sat on the arm of the couch, staring at the box.

"Do you really think you're pregnant?" she asked me, her tone just bordering on being very ugly, but I could tell she was trying to keep her temper.

I rubbed my face and shrugged. "Dr. Crane suggested that maybe my exhaustion is the result of a pregnancy, so..." I gestured to the box. "Here we are."

Lydia stood there with her arms crossed over her chest. "And...what, and the doctors at the hospital just missed it?"

"Well they were looking for a brain tumor, Lyd, not a fetus!" I was so close to yelling but kept my voice down, hard as it was. Fuck how I wished she was easier to talk to.

Lydia went oddly quiet, and when I looked up at her, her eyes were wide and disbelieving. "Jesus, Hanna..." she muttered under her breath, letting her backpack slide off her shoulder and unceremoniously fall to the floor. "It's bad enough you're sleeping with Dr. Roberts, but _pregnant _with his baby_?_"

"I don't know if I am yet, do I?" I shrieked at her, totally unable to help myself, and I watched the way the reprimand hit her like a slap to the face. She pressed her lips together and looked away, and suddenly there was nothing I wanted to do more at that moment than cry. "God..."

A dead silence polluted the air between us for a long time. Lydia stood there, not moving, not saying a word, and I sat there, staring at her boots. I understood why she was upset; I'd probably be upset too, if our roles were reversed. If I was pregnant, if I kept it, I'd have to drop out of school. I'd have to explain it to my father. Worse, I'd have to face Dean, and I don't know why but his reaction scared me worst of all.

After a moment, I heard Lydia sigh. "Have you told him?"

Her voice was softer, but I could still hear the disapproval in her voice. I looked up at her and met her eyes, her upset but non-judgmental eyes, and I shook my head. "No, and I'm not going to tell him unless I am."

She nodded her head firmly, as if she was positive that was the right way to go about it. "Right..."

I still wanted to cry, but I was so relieved that she wasn't about to storm out on me that I withheld the urge and instead let out the deep breath I'd been unaware I was holding in. I stood up and looked at the box, hesitated to pick it up, like it was some kind of land mine, and when I looked at Lydia, her eyes were wide and watching me calmly.

A single tear rolled down the apple of my cheek and I brushed it away. "I just...didn't want to be alone."

Though her expression remained the same, I could see the sympathetic smile in her eyes. Guess the philosophy major wasn't quite made out of stone.

"Okay," she said, and if I'd asked her to raise the baby with me, and she gave me this tiny little smile, as if to assure me everything would be okay, that whatever happened, at least she was there with me; and in that moment I loved her more than any friend I'd had before. "Here, let me see." she said, reaching for the box.

/

Later that evening, I was in the kitchen with a cold mug of tea and an abandoned critical article for class sitting on the countertop when I heard Dean come crashing in through the front door. He was late, but secretly I had hoped he'd be much later so I could go to bed and not have to face him till morning. No such luck.

"Heeeyyy," he called from the front room, and I heard the crash of what sounded like books on the coffee table, before he came lumbering in, looking tired and defeated. I smiled meekly as he pulled me into him with one arm and kissed me. "Sorry I'm late, that meeting went on way longer than it should have," he went to the fridge and fished around for a beer. "Did you eat?"

I stared at him and shook my head. "No."

He stood up and frowned at me as he screwed the cap off his beer with his sleeve. "Han, you gotta eat, you don't wanna relapse," he took a sip, but his eyes darkened as he stared at me, as if he sensed that something was desperately wrong. "Are you okay?"

I nodded, rubbing the back of my neck, not looking at him. "Yeah."

"Are you sure?" he placed his beer down on the counter and took one of my hands between his, probably to test it to see if I was clammy, the way my father used to. Then, he swept his palm over my forehead, and a perplexed look settled on his face. "You look really pale."

I took my hand in his and shook my head, giving him a weak smile. "I'm okay, I'm just...I'm just tired."

He nodded and made a contemplative noise in his throat, though I couldn't tell if he was convinced or not. "Did you go to your session today? Was it all right?"

I withheld the urge to be sick all over his mint green shirt and black sweater and struggled to nod. "Yeah."

I could see by the look on his face that he wasn't going to pry with any more questions; he was good at reading me that way, he knew when I didn't want to hear anymore, a man who knew how to pick his battles. So instead, he took my hand in his and grabbed his beer and dragged me out of the kitchen. "C'mon, I could use a shower before bed and I think you're gonna join me."

/


	13. Chapter 13

**A/N: **Very special thanks to **Artistic Punk, Ravenclaw992, takara410, linalove, Guest, KorroksApostle, Dusty Secrets, Liluri, Just-Me-and-My-Brain, Mortimer Lagunov, Guest, SleepyLambs, blackalligator**, and **Jareth'sQueenBitch **for your reviews! This is an angsty one, to make up for the time between updates. Hope you guys like it!

**Scythe**

**Chapter Thirteen**

**/**

I sat with my back against the door for a good long time, probably longer than I should have, picking at my cuticles and trying to read the signs posted on the bulletin board on the opposite wall with squinting eyes, anything to distract me from the twisting and turning in my stomach, the chilly aching in my toes, the taste of bile in my throat. It didn't even strike me that I'd been waiting a very long time and should probably make my way back to Dean's apartment, when I finally heard the very distinctive sound of Dr. Crane's sharp footsteps on the floor, coming towards me from down the hall.

I looked up at him, watching him come towards me, and even from the distance we were at, I could see the confusion knit at his features. His usual blase expression fell, his lips frowned, his eyebrows came together, and slowly he took the hand out of his pocket while the other held securely to his briefcase. I didn't blame him for being surprised to see me; when had I ever come during a time that the school didn't make me, save for that time Lydia and I ran into him in the hallway?

I got up to my feet, with some difficulty, just as he came within arms reach, slowing his steps and looking me up and down very briefly, his eyes wrought with confusion. "Hanna."

I rubbed my arm, probably to distract myself. "Hi Dr. Crane," I said, croaking in my throat, and I cleared it, looking away from him briefly. "I uh...I know it's not one of our session days, but I just..."

I didn't know how to tell him that I needed to talk to him. That he was the only person I could talk to, at that point.

Lydia had done her part; I couldn't burden her with any more of it, not that she would have listened easily, anyway. Dean couldn't know; my Dad couldn't know. The doctor/patient confidentiality was all I had going for me at that moment, and I needed it more at that moment than I care to admit.

But it didn't seem as though any more explanation was needed. Crane studied me for a moment, his massive jeweled eyes flitting over my features, as though trying to detect some dark intention, some manner of evil...but in seeing none, obviously, he nodded slowly.

"Of course; well, why don't we..." he motioned to the door with his hand, and then, having realized it was his office and he was the one with the key that unlocked the thing, reached into his pocket and pulled out his keys to unlock the door and step back to allow me inside. I stood in the middle of his office, staring at The Chair, thinking it probably wasn't best to have a seat, he probably didn't have a lot of time to talk. The door closed behind us and as I turned around to face him, he was just in the midst of setting his briefcase down on his desk when he motioned to The Chair with his free hand. "Have a seat, please."

I took a step towards it, but then I stopped before I could fling myself down, sink back into its cushion and stare out the window at the leaves on the tree, on the sun coming up over the center of the sky, of the sounds of the kids playing touch football on the lawn opposite the psychology building. Swallowing thickly, I turned around and shook my head. If I sat down in it, I was going to have to lean forward and vomit all over his carpet.

This seemed to concern Crane so much that he rounded his desk and put his hand on my arm, honest to god, the man actually took me by the arm and examined me quite closely, or at least as closely as he could with his gaze. "Hanna, are you okay?"

I cleared my throat a little and shook my head. "I'm sorry to come by unannounced, y'know. I tried calling but I guess you were at class or something-"

He frowned and shook his head. "It's all right, Hanna, really."

"I just..." I heard my voice fade out as I looked at him, and I swallowed my words, looking down and away from him in shame. I felt like such a loser, come crying to my dickhead therapist, of all people, like some little kid dying to tell a huge secret with very limited people to rightfully tell. I pulled in a tight, deep breath and let it all out at once. "I just felt I had to talk to someone."

Crane looked as though his interest was piqued; the frown lifted from his features, and his eyes sparkled a little bit, as though he'd had an epiphany, and then gently he retracted his hand from my arm, though he didn't distance himself from me. "What's the matter?"

It didn't seem necessary to beat around the bush, the way I might have done in a more calm state of mind. I looked directly into his eyes and heard it come blurting out of my throat without so much as a warning in my head. "I took a pregnancy test."

For a good long time, he didn't do anything. He stared down at me steadily, not blinking, not moving, not even breathing, so it seemed. I almost wondered if he had heard me at all, though obviously he had. Then I watched it wash over his face - disappointment. It started in his eyes, dulling them, and then his lips slackened, and he let out a long breath that slumped his shoulders.

I would have slapped him across the face if I'd been expecting any other reaction. But the shame was bad enough.

After a long moment, Crane tore his eyes away from me and tipped his chin, as though contemplating something, and then he turned. He didn't quite turn his back on me, but instead held his shoulder out, as if to ask me, instinctively, to follow him. He was going for his desk, and as he rounded it, he wordlessly gestured to the chair on the other side with his open palm, an invitation to sit down.

I sat down very cautiously, feeling strange and out of place, and looked at The Chair over my shoulder, thinking I should have been sitting over there, that sitting at his desk was almost...taboo, in a way. Looking towards him once more, I watched as he carefully took his glasses off and set them down on his desktop. I expected him to pinch the bridge of his nose or rub his face, gather his thoughts and his onslaughts before letting them loose on me in a screaming frenzy.

But he didn't. He gently laid his elbows on the desk and raised his eyes to me. "Hanna," he said. "What are you most afraid of?"

The question took me off guard; I sat there staring at him, blinking, completely aware that he was waiting for a reply, and yet my head started to fill with all kinds of voices and answers and screaming and yelling that I had to take a moment to concentrate them away, to quiet my thoughts. I knew what he meant, and I knew what the answer was...but articulating the answer was suddenly so much harder than I anticipated.

"Well..." I chewed on my bottom lip and sighed. In light of thinking about everything over the past couple of days, I didn't like the conclusion I'd come to; it sounded so...selfish in my head, and I was afraid to give it a voice and say it aloud, let it out of my head. And in a way, I was afraid to tell Crane; I wasn't his star patient, the two of us knew that perfectly well. The last thing I wanted or needed was to give him more ammunition against his already soured impression of me. "What I really don't want is to be a single parent," I said, and then I scoffed. "I don't even know if I want to be a parent, to tell you the truth..."

God knows motherhood had never been high on my list of priorities or aspirations. I enjoyed my privacy, my free time, my studies and my relationships. And I wasn't good with kids, though I knew I'd be different with my own kid...but what if I wasn't? What if I was just as miserable, just as cynical, just as negative in personality as a mother as I was as a grown woman? How would that reflect on them as they grew up?

And if I had a personality disorder, or whatever it was Crane thought I had, how would _that _reflect on the kid? And it isn't as if I wouldn't love them...but what if I didn't? What if for whatever reason I just...didn't?

I shook it out of my head and looked up at him. "At the very least, I'd wanna be married before having kids."

Having a husband would at least balance them out, I figured.

Crane held out his hands for a split moment, as though it needed no further explanation. "Naturally."

"What if..." I began, and stopped, and Crane sat silently and waited for me to continue, though I was hesitant to say any more. It seemed...despicable, somehow. "What if he left me?"

Crane frowned, as though it seemed unspeakable. "You think he would?"

He'd be furious, I knew that for a fact, but I shook it away. "Or...or say I had the baby, and then Dean got sick? What if I had a baby, and he had a heart attack and died suddenly? What then? What if..."

I stopped myself, because I knew the list of _what ifs _would only go on forever if we let it, and I didn't want to let it, I didn't even want to talk about it. Saying everything out loud just felt as though it might come true, might bring my words to life. I sat and hugged myself, fully aware that Crane was expecting me to continue at some point or another, but I swallowed everything down and kept it down, and kept my eyes away from him because I knew he was watching me steadily, trying to read between the lines of what I was saying, though I knew he probably had already; the man was anything but daft.

Crane made a noise in his throat, as though he were bracing himself for a subject he knew I wasn't going to like, and he laced his fingers together and leaned towards me. "Hanna," he said, his voice low and comforting. "This isn't about pregnancy."

I could have laughed. Wasn't it?

"It's about you."

I looked up at him, frowning, and when it seemed as though he finally had my attention, he eased a little smile. "When your mother was in the water and your father dove in after her, you'd been afraid you lost them both."

Those feelings came rushing back to me, abruptly and jarringly; I remembered it so well, sitting in that boat, looking over the waves for any sign of my father's black hair or the red of my mother's jacket when she fell in. It'd been so long, so long that it felt like forever, and surely for a seven-year-old having seemingly lost both parents to the ocean, it _was _forever. After everything that had happened in the span of only a few minutes in that boat, on that ocean, how could I have come to any conclusion other than that one - that I had suddenly lost both my parents?

"And," Crane continued. "When your father remarried, you lost him, figuratively, to another woman."

That...made more sense than I cared to acknowledge. After Mom's death, it had been him and me, just the two of us, and he was always careful to keep it that way, and though I missed my mother, I loved my father, and after awhile I came to really love how it was just the two of us.

But then came his first shot at happiness with another woman after so many years without one and raising a child on his own, and how did I react?

Well, suddenly the Electra Complex we'd talked about made a whole helluva lotta sense, and perhaps it had, when we first discussed it; I just didn't want to acknowledge it at the time.

Jealousy. I'd grown with it, and there it was.

"And now," Crane said. "You have these feelings of losing a relationship you feel has been the strongest you've ever had."

I closed my eyes tight for a moment, wanting to block it all out, but it was the truth. It was all true.

"Hanna, this is what your hallucination was about. The loss of your mother, your father, potentially Dr. Roberts..."

I felt a single tear slip from my eye and I brushed it away hurriedly, before Crane could see it, though I already knew he had. "I don't want..." I said, unable to keep the emotion from my voice, and when I looked at Crane, his eyes were so massive and so impossibly blue, and they stayed with me, not daring to blink, not daring to look away for one second. "I don't want to lose him."

Crane continued to stare at me very intently. "Why, Hanna?"

I swallowed and shook my head, looking down at his hands lying flat on the desktop, his knuckles white as though he were watching a suspenseful movie, as though something incredible was just unfolding right before his very eyes.

"I don't want to be alone..." I admitted, quietly, and then I looked up at him, shaking my head. "I'm scared to be alone."

And then, I witnessed something truly awe-inspiring and utterly horrifying, all at the same time.

Dr. Crane smiled; the man _**smiled**_, a wide, genuine, and beautiful smile. "_Precisely_."

**/**

I came home feeling very strange. I hadn't thought a breakthrough would ever happen, or that it would hit me so poignantly, or that it would inspire such a rise in Crane. I'd never seen him so animated; his eyes had seemed to start glowing, like big blue marbles, like they'd been electrically charged. I couldn't really blame him; after dealing with all my bullshit, I bet any therapist would have been ecstatic to see some actual progress, to see a sign of hope somewhere on the horizon that something in the therapy was getting through. But it irked me, maybe because I wasn't expecting to hear it put so simply, or maybe because I just wasn't expecting it at all. But it made complete sense, it really did.

Kicking off my boots I saw Dean's shoes on the floor and wondered why he hadn't called out to me, unless of course he was nose-deep in marking. I hung up my coat and padded slowly down the hall to his office, but it was empty. Frowning, I went towards the kitchen; maybe he was fixing a late lunch or something.

He was sitting at the kitchen table swigging from a beer bottle, which was weird because he never drank earlier than at least 3pm. He looked depressed, and the sight of him made me frown. I paused in the doorway, staring at him. He was wearing the plum purple sweater I loved, and he was clean shaven. He'd been to class; maybe he was going through another one of his _I hate my students, why am I doing this _phases.

"Hey," I said at last, softly into the tenuous air.

He looked up at me, and I could see the upset in his dark eyes and it worried me. He didn't smile or nod or anything, he just stared at me. "Hey."

Something was really, really wrong.

"Are you okay?" I asked, stepping into the kitchen.

He took in a deep breath and let it out in a sigh. "No, I'm not okay. Doesn't matter how many times I tell you it's recyclable..." And he produced the pregnancy test box, setting it down on the table. "You always throw cardboard in with the rest of the garbage."

I stared at the box in shock. I was sure I had buried it deep enough under broken eggshells and old spaghetti that he wouldn't find it. But I saw the folly; I shouldn't have even left it in the house at all, not where there was even a chance of him finding it.

I closed my eyes tightly. I could feel the anger radiating off him. How the hell would I even begin to go about explaining it. I sighed and hung my head. "Shit."

I didn't know whether to sit down with him or stay standing, and he didn't motion for one way or the other. He just stared at me with that deep-set frown and angry eyes. I resolved to lean back against the kitchen counter and rubbed my forehead with my hand.

"So..." he murmured after a bit of silence. "Were you ever going to say anything?"

The tone in his voice was so ugly and unlike him. I looked at him to respond but he was looking away, he couldn't even look me in the eye when I told him. "I didn't know how-"

"Didn't know how, so what, you were just gonna keep it to yourself?!" he shouted, and it made me jump. I'd seen him really angry only once before, and it'd scared the hell out of me. I was petrified he was going to get that angry again.

I stared at him, watching his angry eyes staring into me, and I pursed my lips together. "Of course not, I would have told you-"

"Yeah, would you?" he was seething, he balled his hands into fists and flexed them, and it made me nervous as hell. He was breathing heavily, and stared at me hard as I stared back, about to burst into tears. "You had to wait until I found the fucking box, that you tried to hide; doesn't seem like you were going to bring it up at all."

I had to diffuse the situation, I knew I had to, but I couldn't move, couldn't say anything; I just stared at him, petrified, and watched him stand up from his seat and pace from one end of the kitchen to the other, face-palming, the stress just radiating off him. I looked into the living room, at the door, thinking I should just put on my coat and boots and leave for awhile, come back when he had cooled off, when he was more approachable.

But he stopped in front of me, within arms length, and held out his hands as if to implore me to tell him the truth, as though I'd been lying to him from day one. "Just...just tell me right now," he said, his voice strained and stressed, and his eyes were darker than I ever remember them being. "Are you?"

I stared up at him, and I could feel tears stinging my eyes, and I couldn't tell if it was because he was upset, or if it was because I was upset, or if it was because I was suddenly just as angry as he was and I had no idea where that anger came from, really.

I shook my head at him. "No, I'm not."

I watched as his expression changed quite dramatically, Mr. Hyde back to Dr. Jekyll: the relief just washed over him, plain for me to see; his expression and his eyes softened, but I could see the apprehension -he was apprehensive to believe me- and I can't even describe how much it broke my heart.

"You're sure?" he asked, his voice quiet and quite unsure.

I don't know what it was, whether he was so angry that I might have been pregnant to suddenly being so relieved that I wasn't...I felt so heartbroken I couldn't even look at him. I wiped away the tears that had spilled down my cheeks and gave him a pointed look. "You wanna see the stick I peed on?"

I couldn't even look at him, I didn't want to. Suddenly the idea of even standing in his presence was horrible to me. I covered my mouth with my hand so I wouldn't sob and left the kitchen in a hurry.

"Hanna-" I heard him call behind me, and as I stormed down the hall to the bedroom, I heard him hot on my heels. "Han, look, I saw the box and I freaked-"

"Well good," I shouted at him over my shoulder, unable to keep the sob out of my voice. "At least now I know how you'd feel if I really was pregnant - repulsed!"

"Han," he set a hand on my shoulder gently, as if to get me to stop and look at him, but I jerked it off. He didn't try again. "I wouldn't be repulsed, you know that."

"Well then what the fuck was that, just now?!" I demanded, turning on him, and I knew he knew how upset I was because I could see it written on his face. I angrily wiped tears away. "You were ready to tear my head off if I told you I was, and don't deny it!"

I knew then. I hadn't been scared about him being angry. I was upset that he wouldn't want me to have his baby - ever. Even though I was apprehensive about the idea of having kids, of having kids with him, I figured if I ever really wanted to, and if I could make it work with any man, I'd only ever want that man to be Dean.

To know that he wouldn't want me to have his baby was just...just...

Dean was silent but he had this incredibly pained look on his face, as though he'd just realized why I was so upset. We were quiet for a few minutes, just staring at each other, until-

"What would be so bad about it?" I demanded, staring at him.

"Han," he said very gently. "I'd have to quit my job...if I didn't get fired first. You'd have to drop out and we'd have to leave Gotham. Either way I couldn't possibly afford a kid with my salary, and I seriously doubt your father would be happy about it-"

"Okay," I put up my hand to stop him, just to shut him up. I'd heard enough logical reasoning. "Aside from all that, I'm asking _you_."

I knew he knew what I meant because it made his face fall, and that I think upset me most of all. He sighed heavily and ran a hand through his hair, not looking at me, not being able to, and I stared at him, and the longer I stared, the more upset I became.

"Hanna," he said finally, in a dismal voice. "I'm not cut out to be a dad. If I was, I'd be one already."

I had the sense he said it to make me feel better in some fucked-up manner. It wasn't that he didn't want to have kids with me; he didn't want kids at all, _ever_. It suddenly made a lot of sense. When I was still just a student of his, I remembered staring at him during lecture and wondering why he wasn't married. I'm guessing the no-kids policy had something to do with that.

He sighed heavily and held out his arms. "It's just not for me."

I stared at him, wondering how he could possibly think that without having a child of his own. I know he was trying to be reassuring, but it just made me feel more miserable.

"So if I was pregnant-"

"Which you're not..." He reaffirmed with alarmed eyes.

"But say I was," I snapped at him. "If I was...what then?"

He sighed and shook his head. "I don't know, Hanna."

I didn't know either. I didn't know if he'd support me or leave me, in which case I didn't know if I'd keep it or not. I just didn't know.

I sniffed miserably. "Well, at least I know where you stand."

It came out sadder than I meant it to, but I couldn't help it. The notion of having a family with Dean was very romantic, though I hadn't seriously thought about it until this whole fiasco. The tone of the relationship hadn't really been all that serious, not that I looked back on it. Seemed like we were just a professor and his student goofing around, having a little fun, no harm in it. When I moved in with him, well, maybe that was just for fun, too. I don't think either of us knew how long this relationship was supposed to last, really. It just sort of...happened. That was why I'd hesitated in telling Dad about it at all, and maybe that's why the potential pregnancy scared him so much. He didn't know either.

Dean came forward as if to take me in his arms, but hesitated, and rightly so. I didn't know how I'd react either. "Hanna, I love you."

I stared at him in shock. Was this supposed to happen? Were we supposed to fall in love? I felt tears pinching at my eyes. I wanted to smile and I wanted to scream. He loved me. The professor _loved _me.

I could see he wanted to smile. His eyes gave it away. "I love _us_."

I pressed my lips together. I wanted to cry so much. "So do I."

He smiled then, sadly, and reaching for me I couldn't help but go to him, to his arms and let him hold me tight against him. I melted against his chest, taking in his smell, completely giving in.

/


	14. Chapter 14

A/N: Thank you so much to **Ravenclaw992, CeliaSingsSongs, Just-Me-and-My-Brain, Just Look in the Mirror, KorroksApostle, Jessie, Graciepkg, Songs That Serenade7, Guest, Ellarose181, AnimeManga Lover 65, and Guest** for your lovely reviews. I'm so sorry this update took so long to publish, but I hope you enjoy it! :)

**Scythe**

**Chapter Fourteen**

/

"Here," Lydia said. "What about a star?"

I looked at it and then took it from her, but as I stared at it, it seemed like a tricky shape to manoeuvre. I shrugged. "I dunno," I said. "To me that says too much like my pussy's the star, y'know?"

Lydia took the stencil from me and hung it back up where she found it. "I think that's kinda the point, but whatever..." she looked, and then she picked out another one and showed it to me. "Maybe a lightning bolt?"

I knew that was a common shape, but I could never figure out why. I shook my head. "There's nothing sexy about that."

She replaced it, and pointed at another one without bothering to pick it up. "Lucky clover?"

"What," I said with a laugh, and then I elbowed her playfully. "As in look at me, I'm getting lucky?"

Lydia rolled her eyes. "God, Hanna, will you just pick one so we can get out of here already?"

The philosophy major had somewhat begrudgingly agreed to come with me to our local sex-shop on her lunch after I'd told her about my idea to surprise Dean by shaving my pubic hair into a fun shape. The selection was surprisingly good, but it also made it kind of difficult to choose, and I could see that Lydia was feeling uncomfortable because some of the shop's creepier patrons were looking at us curiously from where they stood amongst the video shelves.

I shrugged. "I want it to make an impression."

"Y'know Dean's only gonna see it for maybe a minute and then he's not gonna care," she said.

"He's just been under so much stress lately," I said, thinking about how the pregnancy scare had really taken a toll on him; he came home everyday after class looking completely wiped out, yet he still managed to smile, and he still managed to engulf me in his arms. I wanted to do something for him that showed him how grateful I was to have him, especially due to our recent problems. "He's just been kind of depressed, so I wanna do something nice for him."

Lydia shrugged. "Shaving your pubes into a shape might not be what he's looking for."

"Yeah," and looked at her with a smile. "But he won't be expecting it either."

She curled her nose. "Let's hope not."

I spotted a heart stencil and pulled it off the hanger to examine it. I smiled; I don't know why I didn't think of it in the first place. "Here, a heart," I said, showing Lydia the stencil. "Something that says I love you, but I really love when you go down on me."

She frowned at me. "How often does he do that?"

I shrugged as I turned to go towards the cashier so I could pay for the stencil. "Fairly often, y'know how it is..." I said, looking at her over my shoulder. "He likes it, what can I say?"

Lydia rolled her eyes, but she waited, appropriately, until the stencil was bought and paid for and we were halfway out the door when she said it. "I'm going to have to drop his class next semester. I know way more about him than I should."

I tucked the stencil and the receipt into my purse, swung it over my shoulder, and grinned at her as we began our walk back to campus. "You never know, it might someday work to your advantage."

"Oh, yeah right, blackmail," she said as we slowed to a lazy walk, side by side on the sidewalk. "Dr. Roberts, I really think you should reconsider this B minus you gave me, y'see...I know you eat Hanna out on a regular basis and the dean of students wouldn't be impressed."

I laughed, even though her tone was way less than enthused. "Whatever, like he'd ever give you a B minus," and I watched her smile because I knew it was true; he was one of her favourite professors and he thought she was brilliant, always gave her great marks. I checked my watch and frowned. "I know we were gonna get coffee, but we should head back to school, I've got session with Crane today and I don't wanna be late."

Lydia made a delighted sound in her throat. "Mmm, speaking of being eaten out..."

I grimaced painfully and smacked her. "Thanks a lot, that's all I'm gonna be able to think about while we're talking."

She had a look on her face that told me she was daydreaming the scenario right at that moment. "The man's got the most perfect mouth for it, y'know what I mean? You know what I mean, those plush lips...and imagine those big blue eyes staring up at you the whole time..."

"Gawd, stop it, you're gonna make me sick," I laughed, and she bit down on her tongue and grinned at me. "I'm starting to think you could benefit from a little bit of therapy."

"Ohhh yeah," she said. "Dr. Crane Tongue Therapy."

I shook my head, though I couldn't help the giggles. It seemed like a long time since we'd talked like this, like girlfriends, just like usual, and it felt like forever since I'd laughed in such a way. It felt awesome, it felt like things were starting to return to normal...or at least as normal as things could be after everything that had happened. I linked my arm in hers as the campus came into view at the end of the street. "I'll lend you the stencil when I'm done with it."

/

It wasn't hard to see where Lydia was coming from, to be brutally honest. I sat in The Chair and watched Dr. Crane across the room, rummaging through papers on his desk. I remembered our first few sessions, when I was so taken aback by his beauty that I had a hard time maintaining eye contact with him without my face going beet red. If he ever noticed, he didn't show it, though it occurred to me that it was something he encountered a lot in his work: students too attracted to him to give their therapy the concentration it needed. Maybe that was why he was so exasperated all the time.

And yet his mood seemed considerably brighter. He'd managed half a smile when he let me in and asked if I wanted tea, since he already had the kettle boiling. The air in the office seemed to be far more relaxed, for whatever reason; as I nestled back into the comfort of The Chair, I thought about our breakthrough last session and just how big of an impact it seemed to have made.

"Hanna," Dr. Crane said, breaking my train of thought as he held out the little Chinese teacup for me to take. I took it in both hands and gave him a smile, taking a careful sip as he rounded the coffee table and sat down across from me, sipping his own tea before setting the teacup down in front of him.

"So," he said, cradling his hands in his lap. "How have things been?"

I immediately thought of telling him about the pubic hair stencil stashed in my purse and asking his opinion about what shape men considered the sexiest; I don't know why it hadn't occurred to me before, to ask a man's opinion. But I swallowed it down, along with a second sip of tea, and I shrugged. "Well, something kinda happened after last session..."

He tilted his head slightly but said nothing, waiting for me to continue.

I cleared my throat; I was suddenly very interested to hear his thoughts on this one. "Dean accidentally found the box that the pregnancy test came in."

He made an interested sound in his throat, halfway between a laugh and a groan. "And how did he react?"

I shook my head. I didn't even like to think about it, though I knew it was important to bring up. "He freaked, he totally reamed me out. He was shouting and pacing around the kitchen-"

"Really?" Dr. Crane asked, frowning slightly.

"Yeah," I said, nodding. "And when I got him calmed down and told him I wasn't pregnant, he told me that he reacted that way because he...doesn't want kids. At all."

Dr. Crane had a contemplative look on his face, as though he was having a hard time picturing the argument, but he didn't say anything. He was waiting for me to follow up with my own thoughts. So I shrugged. "He told me that he loves me, that he loves us," and it made me smile a little. "But he doesn't want kids, ever."

"Is that not something he made clear in the first stages of your relationship?" Dr. Crane asked, cradling the side of his face with his fingers.

I thought about it but then shook my head. "I don't think it ever came up...I didn't really expect it to, since I didn't expect this to turn into anything more than...y'know," I was suddenly embarrassed to say it in front of him, even though it'd been the root of my therapy since our second session. "Sexual."

"Hmm," he nodded, and then he looked away for a moment as though he trying to figure out what was to be asked next. "How do you feel about this?"

I took in a breath and set the Chinese teacup on the table in front of me, sat back and crossed my arms. "I don't really know, to be honest with you...I was upset at first. He treated the possibility of being pregnant like it was some sort of terminal disease. And when I told him I wasn't, he was so relieved..."

This obviously piqued his interest. "What do you think would have happened if you were pregnant?"

I looked at him seriously, because I think he knew the answer to that, but when I looked into his eyes, I knew why he asked it; he knew I'd been asking myself the same question, that it'd been rolling around inside of my head, unasked and unanswered. Now was a chance to get it out and address it. And yet I didn't have a definitive answer. "I don't know. I don't know if he would have left me or stayed...given his reaction, I don't know if I would've kept it. Scares the hell outta me, just thinking about it."

It had kept me up that night, much as I hated to admit it. We had insane sex following the whole thing; it was difficult to keep the libido at bay after hearing that the professor loved me. But after Dean had fallen asleep and I'd wandered into the kitchen for a glass of water, the whole scene played out in my head, and I wondered what he would have done if I actually had been pregnant.

"What about your own reaction?" Dr. Crane asked. "Taking Dr. Roberts out of the picture, what would you have done?"

I shook my head; that was even harder because I really didn't know what I would have done in that case. "I have no idea. If he hadn't found the box, I think I might've kept it from him for as long as I could."

He narrowed his eyes to me suddenly, as though he'd just heard something he thought was very interesting. He shifted in his seat, leaning forward just a little. "Where did he find the box?"

"In the garbage," I said, and then I rolled my eyes. "It was such a stupid mistake on my part. I buried it under a ton of crap, but I should have taken it...I dunno, down the street and thrown it out in the nearest garbage can. Taken it to school, even, thrown it out there, where he never would have found it."

"Hanna," he said. "Have you considered the possibility that you wanted him to find it?"

I stared at him, dumbfounded, but the question caught me off guard. Of course I hadn't wanted him to find it, I knew he would've reacted badly if he did - just like he did - and that's why I hid it under as much garbage as I did, though obviously it wasn't enough...

But then again when he did find it, I'd known immediately that I shouldn't have left it in the house at all, that I should have thrown it out at a completely disclosed location. Why hadn't I done that? The relief I'd felt with the negative test didn't warrant that kind of laziness and lack of foresight.

Perhaps I had wanted him to find it, on a subconscious level. I wanted to know where he stood on the matter, once and for all, and now I did.

"Wow..." I said, and rubbed my face with my hand. "That kind of explains everything..."

He eased a little smile. "Sometimes we don't know what we want or what we need until the mind reminds us, even if we're unaware of it."

"Apparently."

"So this happened after our session from the other day..." he said, looking over his notes. "So how have things been since then?"

I wanted to tell him that if I wasn't pregnant then, I probably was now, given the amount of sex we'd had between then and now, it seemed totally possible. But I didn't feel like being crude. "Really great. I mean, it pays to know where we stand on these kinds of issues. I don't know why we never talked about it before."

He shrugged his shoulders a little. "In relationships of a purely sexual nature, those kinds of expectations can be purposely overlooked."

"Yeah, but even when we started living together, you'd figure we would have had some kind of conversation about it," I said, thinking back on it.

When I moved in with him, Dean had his few nit-picky house rules: he didn't want students at his place, Lydia being an obvious exception because she was my best friend. I was not to touch his Corn-Pops cereal or the jalapeño cheezies he kept in the pantry, didn't matter if I was starving. He had the place looking the way he wanted, he didn't want any girly shit anywhere, which suited me fine because I loved the place the way it was, it was small but had a real sophisticated look to it, and I had no inclination whatsoever to change anything, nor would I have presumed to change anything. He liked his sleep and he liked his super long showers and he liked to sing while he showered and that was all just fine with me, so long as I was with him, it didn't matter. And although there were a few things that would have irritated me if it had been any other person, they didn't irritate me because it was Dean, and I loved him, and every day I woke up in his bed and wondered what I'd done to ever get so lucky.

But it had never really gone beyond house rules. We never had the no-babies talk because it just wasn't on our minds, just like marriage. We liked things the way they were, they were perfect the way they were. But of course it was inevitable that something would come along and put a test to it, to all of it. It was only a matter of time.

"But you've talked about it now?" Dr. Crane asked.

I nodded. "We have. He says he loves us, and I love us. That's all we need."

Dr. Crane nodded, and though there was a hint of a pleased smile on his lips, there was something glinting in his eyes, something like irritation, like somewhere in the back of his mind, he was quietly spitting fuck!

/

Later that night, I opened the bathroom door to come into the bedroom and stared at Dean as he sat up in bed, shirtless, with his thick-framed reading glasses on, going through what looked like a student paper with a very exhausted look on his face. I tried to smile, but all I could do was stand there awkwardly, holding the folds of my lilac bathrobe together, while my crotch itched like crazy and my face went red.

After awhile he realized I wasn't coming to bed and looked up at me, frowning. "What's wrong?"

I made a face. "I did something kinda stupid."

He set down the paper he'd been reading in his lap and beckoned me over with the wave of his hand. I swallowed and went towards the bed, standing at the side while he looked me up and down, as though looking for something physically wrong. "What is it?"

I took in a deep breath and held it, trying not to smile. "I'll show you, but you have to promise you won't laugh."

He smiled a little then, looking so exhausted it was as if he couldn't laugh, not even if he wanted to. "Okay, I won't."

"Promise!" I said, pointing a finger at him threateningly, and when he put up his hands as if to say Scouts honour, I untied my robe and took it off. His eyes looked me over for a second until they were drawn immediately to the blotch of misshapen pubic hair standing out against my otherwise bare mound. He blinked rapidly, not able to look away, and after a moment he took his glasses off and leaned closer to give it fuller inspection. "It's supposed to be a heart."

I watched him smile a little, and then he reached forward and touched it with his fingertip, tracing a heart around it. "Well, it kinda does look like a heart."

It didn't. I groaned. "I got the idea from Cosmo; they said it was super easy, bur it wasn't."

He looked up at me finally, and he gave me the biggest, happiest smile, the smile that made him so attractive I could barely stand it. He chuckled a little. "What inspired this?"

I laughed, completely unable to help it, and I pressed a hand over my eyes. "I don't know, it looked like fun and I thought you'd like it."

Dean looked up at me after giving it further inspection, and his smile was gone, but I recognized the look in his eyes. He reached forward to wrap his hand around my forearm and gently pulled, and as I climbed up onto the bed, he sat up straight and pulled me into his lap so that I straddled his hips, grinning madly the entire time. He continued to stare at my pubic hair in awe and brushed it once more with his fingertips. "That's the sexiest thing I've ever seen."

I laughed. "Oh, shut up," I said, smacking his shoulder. "I know I botched it, you don't have to make so much fun."

"I'm not," he said quite seriously, looking up at me with his eyes shining. "It's perfect."

"You're such a liar," I said, giggling as I leaned down to kiss him.

He kissed me back, softly at first, and swept his fingers over my shoulder, marvelling at the soft coolness of my freshly-lotioned skin. He broke the kiss and pressed his face against my chest, taking in a deep breath, and as his arms wrapped around me, I started to curl his dark hair in-between my fingers.

"Are you okay?" I asked.

He sighed and closed his eyes. "I'm happy."

I swear in that moment I could have started sobbing. I was happy too.

/


End file.
